Smart indoor living advances in the recent decade, such as home indoor localization and positioning, has seen a significant need for low-cost localization systems based on freely available resources such as Received Signal Strength Indicator by the dense deployment of Wireless Local Area Networks (WLAN). The off-the-shelf user equipment (UE’s) available at an affordable price across the globe are well equipped with the functionality to scan the radio access network for hearable single strength; in complex indoor environments, multiple signals can be received at a particular reference point with no consideration of the height of the transmitter and possible broadcasting coverage. Most effective fingerprinting algorithm solutions require specialized labor, are time-consuming to carry out site surveys, training of the data, big data analysis, and in most cases, additional hardware requirements relatively increase energy consumption and cost, not forgetting that in case of changes in the indoor environment will highly affect the fingerprint due to interferences. This paper experimentally evaluates and proposes a novel technique for Received Signal Indicator (RSSI) distance prediction, leveraging transceiver height, and Fresnel ranging in a complex indoor environment to better suit the path loss of RSSI at a particular Reference Point (RP) and time, which further contributes greatly to indoor localization. The experimentation in different complex indoor environments of the corridor and office lab during work hours to ascertain real-life and time feasibility shows that the technique’s accuracy is greatly improved in the office room and the corridor, achieving lower average prediction errors at low-cost than the comparison prediction algorithms. Compared with the conventional prediction techniques, for example, with Access Point 1 (AP1), the proposed Height Dependence Path–Loss (HEM) model at 0 dBm error attains a confidence probability of 10.98%, higher than the 2.65% for the distance dependence of Path–Loss New Empirical Model (NEM), 4.2% for the Multi-Wall dependence on Path-Loss (MWM) model, and 0% for the Conventional one-slope Path-Loss (OSM) model, respectively. Online localization, amongst the hearable APs, it is seen the proposed HEM fingerprint localization based on the proposed HEM prediction model attains a confidence probability of 31% at 3 m, 55% at 6 m, 78% at 9 m, outperforming the NEM with 26%, 43%, 62%, 62%, the MWM with 23%, 43%, 66%, respectively. The robustness of the HEM fingerprint using diverse predicted test samples by the NEM and MWM models indicates better localization of 13% than comparison fingerprints.

Different from the social network which only focuses on the interaction between people, the integration of social networks and the internet of things (IoT) leads to multi-directional interactions of human to human, human to thing, and thing to thing. The social IoT is composed of a large number of heterogeneous devices, which can improve the scalability of resource and service. Meanwhile, the heterogeneous devices have uneven computing power and different location information measurement types (e.g., the distance, angle, and hop count). Therefore, a localization approach with easy-to-obtain measurement data and low requirements on the computing power is needed. In this article, we propose a localization approach for the social IoT by combining the fuzzy rough set theory and the ridge regression extreme learning machine (RRELM). First of all, a location fingerprint database is constructed. Different from the traditional location fingerprint database, the location fingerprint database here stores the minimum hop counts between the reference node (RN) and the anchor node (AN) instead of the received signal strength (RSS). Second, the fuzzy rough set theory is used to compute the significant degree of each AN, and the ANs that contribute little to the positioning result are removed. This approach not only relieves the storage pressure of the location fingerprint database but also reduces the computational complexity of user position estimation. Third, the RRELM is trained by using the samples in the location fingerprint database. Finally, by inputting the newly collected minimum hop counts from the user to each AN into the trained RRELM, the user's position is estimated. From the extensive experimental results, the proposed approach has high positioning accuracy and low computational complexity, which is suitable for the social IoT.

Wi-Fi fingerprint localization using received signal strength indicator (RSSI) values has been widely adopted for indoor WLAN environments due to its accuracy and low deployment cost. However, the indoor environment comprises different schematic dimensions, e.g., for offices, corridors, and lobby spaces, under the same Wi-Fi coverage range. We propose a novel fingerprinting approach that leverages the schematic dimensional size of the target area to construct the radio map: The Peer Hand-shake (PHS) database. It deploys competitive pattern learning for representation between adjacent candidate reference vector points during offline calibration phase. Our extensive experimental analysis in a 15 m-by-9 m target area, using conventional nearest neighbor-based localization algorithms, show that PHS outperforms comparisons with average localization error below 2.7 m for all localization algorithms at affordable cost.

Indoor localization as a technique for assisting, or replacing outdoor satellite and cell tower localization systems, has taken a toll in the recent Internet of Things (IoT) era. This IoT drive has prompted increased research towards indoor localization, where fingerprinting, radio mapping as a cost‐effective and efficient scheme, is emerging as the best enterprise entrepreneurs choose. However, indoor complex environments comprise of trackable devices (TD) at various heights, such as child trackers, dog tags, TD on the table, TD’s in the pockets, and situations such as pedestrians talking on the phone: that is at the height of the ear, amongst others. This paper first investigates and analyses “experimentally” the impact of received signal strength indicator (RSSI) fingerprinting height to construct radio maps for indoor localization. Secondly, it proposes the novel trapezoid path loss model for RSSI estimation and finally the nearest neighbour trapezoid (NNT) algorithm for IoT smart indoor localization leveraging and mitigating the impact of height considered during the offline signal fingerprinting. We further propose approximately 1 meter above the flooring of the target space as the effective fingerprinting height for indoor localization approaches.