A Location-Aware Infrastructure Approach for Local Wireless Networks

Abstract. This work presents an user access control method and location man-agement approach for wireless networks. The access control provides an authenti-cation mechanism to identify authorized users and what services they are allowed to access, while the location management has the main purpose of determine the users position in order to offer services that are nearby them. To identify users on wireless networks is important to keep the network security, mainly because there are no cables, turning easier to anyone get physically connected to the network. Therefore this work proposes an access control mechanism that is independent of support to special protocols by wireless devices, and utilizes several entities such as LDAP servers, firewalls and others to achieve an effective way to control to users access rights and network services usage. Besides the user identity, the user location can be used to determine what services can be offered to him/her. The location system developed in this work uses two different approaches to discover the user positioning. The first one implements a low-grained position systems that identifies the user logical position through the access point which the user device is connected. The second one applies infrared beacons to divulge codes that are associated with the sensors physical position, turning possible to deter-mine more precisely where the user is. The access control system and location management are combined to create an integrated management environment for services. Besides this, a couple of relevant data can be collected and will be used in the future to improve the proposed system and to monitor and control resource usage, network workload, users activities and other environment aspects.