Handbook on Array Processing and Sensor Networks

CHAPTER 25

Nonparametric Techniques for Pedestrian Tracking in Wireless Local Area Networks

Azadeh Kushki and Konstantinos N. Plataniotis

The Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

25.1 INTRODUCTION

Over the past five decades, the problem of target tracking has been studied extensively in military and civilian applications. More recently, advances in wireless communication technology have enabled user mobility within wireless networks, resulting in the dependency of users' communication, resource, and information needs on their physical location. This has sparked a new need for effective positioning and tracking of wireless terminals to allow the delivery of location-based services catered to changing user contexts. Well-known examples of positioning systems are the Global Positioning System (GPS) and cellular network-based systems [1] used for navigation and location-based emergency and commercial services.

The ubiquity of indoor wireless networks has also inspired location awareness in indoor environments in applications such as location-based network access, management, and security, automatic resource assignment, health monitoring, guidance of persons with disabilities, location-sensitive information delivery, and context awareness. Unfortunately, the positioning accuracy provided by existing cellular-based ...