A survey of active and passive indoor localisation systems

0140-3664/$ see front matter 2012 Elsevier B.V. A http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.comcom.2012.06.004 ⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +44 (0) 28 71375418; E-mail address: [email protected] (G. Dea 1 School of Computing and Intelligent Systems, Engineering, University of Ulster, Derry, N. Ireland, BT4 In recent years the need for indoor localisation has increased. Earlier systems have been deployed in order to demonstrate that indoor localisation can be done. Many researchers are referring to location estimation as a crucial component in numerous applications. There is no standard in indoor localisation thus the selection of an existing system needs to be done based on the environment being tracked, the accuracy and the precision required. Modern localisation systems use various techniques such as Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI), Time of Arrival (TOA), Time Difference of Arrival (TDOA) and Angle of Arrival (AOA). This paper is a survey of various active and passive localisation techniques developed over the years. The majority of the localisation techniques are part of the active systems class due to the necessity of tags/electronic devices carried by the person being tracked or mounted on objects in order to estimate their position. The second class called passive localisation represents the estimation of a person’s position without the need for a physical device i.e. tags or sensors. The assessment of the localisation systems is based on the wireless technology used, positioning algorithm, accuracy and precision, complexity, scalability and costs. In this paper we are comparing various systems presenting their advantages and disadvantages. 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.