Abstract-This paper introduces a novel simulation testbed for investigating WLAN indoor localization systems. This testbed referred to as WiLocSim consists of a novel beacon received signal strength (RSS) simulator which provides realistic modeling of beacon signal characteristics such as multipath propagation, measurement noise and body loss. Each component of the simulator is individually modeled and verified prior to integration. In addition, the capabilities of the testbed are demonstrated using two variants of the nearest neighbor classification based indoor localization algorithm. Unlike conventional measurement based performance evaluation, the proposed testbed provides a reproducible environment for accurate evaluation and analysis of indoor localization systems. More importantly, it significantly reduces the high labor cost typically required in measurement based testbed.

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Location fingerprinting provides localization for devices in indoor environments using existing Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) infrastructure. However, the initial offline calibration which is required for these types of systems is non-trivial and requires significant labour cost. The current practice is to collect measurements at calibration points in a uniform grid for the area which is covered by the radio map. However, not all calibration points are resolvable in signal space and addition of unresolvable calibration points does not improve the localization accuracy. This paper presents Spatial Aware Signal Space Clustering (S3C) clustering algorithm which analyses walk test data for identifying these unresolvable calibration points prior to calibration phase. Simulation based studies shows that the algorithm is able to reduce the labour cost of calibration phase while preserving the localization accuracy.

Network planning is an essential part of any wireless network deployment. The prices of commercial network planning tools are expensive, making them inaccessible to many researchers and organizations with small networks. However, in house development of network planning tools are not as hard as it was used to be. The freely available web maps and rapid development capability of MATLAB Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs) and recently integrated Object Oriented Programming to MATLAB make it much easier. Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) data is a public database which gives access to elevation data for the whole world. In this paper we give the architecture details of our owned Network Planning Cell Tool (NPCET), a network planning tool that was designed for planning rural WiMAX networks in Malaysia. Developing a network planning tool is multi-disciplinary in nature, the scope of the project involves wireless propagation, geographical information systems and maps, network planning and programming. The paper can be used as a guide for researchers on how to integrate necessary data sources and propagation models for building a comprehensive planning tool for almost any type of communication system.

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