Wi-Go: accurate and scalable vehicle positioning using WiFi fine timing measurement

Driver assistance and vehicular automation would greatly benefit from uninterrupted lane-level vehicle positioning, especially in challenging environments like metropolitan cities. In this paper, we explore whether the WiFi Fine Time Measurement (FTM) protocol, with its robust, accurate ranging capability, can complement current GPS and odometry systems to achieve lane-level positioning in urban canyons. We introduce Wi-Go, a system that simultaneously tracks vehicles and maps WiFi access point positions by coherently fusing WiFi FTMs, GPS, and vehicle odometry information together. Wi-Go also adaptively controls the FTM messaging rate from clients to prevent high bandwidth usage and congestion, while maximizing the tracking accuracy. Wi-Go achieves lane-level vehicle positioning (1.3 m median and 2.9 m 90-percentile error), an order of magnitude improvement over vehicle built-in GPS, through vehicle experiments in the urban canyons of Manhattan, New York City, as well as in suburban areas (0.8 m median and 3.2 m 90-percentile error).