Two Birds With One Stone: Wireless Access Point Deployment for Both Coverage and Localization

• Published in: IEEE transactions on vehicular technology 2011-06, Vol.60 (5), p.2239-2252
• Main Authors: Liao, Lin, Chen, Weifeng, Zhang, Chuanlin, Zhang, Lizhuo, Xuan, Dong, Jia, Weijia
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Access point (AP); Accuracy; Applied sciences; Approximation; area localization scheme (ALS); Area measurement; basic cross area; deployment patterns; Estimation; Exact sciences and technology; IEEE 802.11 Standards; Localization; localization accuracy; Mathematical analysis; Mathematical models; Mobile communication systems; Mobile handsets; optimal deployment; Optimization; Position (location); Studies; Systems, networks and services of telecommunications; Telecommunications; Telecommunications and information theory; Transmission and modulation (techniques and equipments); Wireless communication; wireless localization; Wireless networks; Wireless sensor networks
• ISSN: 0018-9545; 1939-9359
• DOI: 10.1109/TVT.2011.2109405

Wireless access points (APs) divide a plane into small areas where their coverage ranges overlap. A mobile device can be located within a particular small overlapped area based on the unique set of APs covering the device. We formally define an Optimal Loc-deployment problem for both coverage and area localization. Our objective is to deploy a minimum number of APs that provide full communication coverage while achieving the ability to locate a mobile device within a certain area no larger than a given accuracy parameter. We obtain a formula that precisely determines the optimal solution for more than half of the accuracy values. For the rest of the accuracy values, we propose an algorithm that will return an approximation whose difference to the optimal solution is less than ε for any ε >; 0. Finally, we conduct extensive numerical evaluation and real experiments to validate our proposed solutions.