Bandwidth efficient localization for sustainable and safe building environments

Abstract

The objective of this work is to propose the use of innovative low-cost wireless sensor network nodes equipped with smart antennas, so as to meet the goal of creating a sustainable and safe building environment. The proposed wireless sensor network system can provide information on people density within building areas, information that can be used in a number of applications such as energy footprint optimization, predictive maintenance and building safe evacuation. The unique design of the proposed sensor nodes can be supportive to the aforementioned applications by providing people location information and building area usage in a bandwidth efficient way, in order to enable such systems to be integrated into existing low-bandwidth in-building communication systems, such as fire alert and automation networks. Node architecture is based on the use of low-cost and low-complexity switched beam antennas and the use of a localization estimation algorithm based on angle of arrival measurements which, as opposed to popular received signal strength based algorithms, are not affected by the severe multipath environment of indoor communications systems.