Indoor/Outdoor Location of Cellular Handsets Based on Received Signal Strength

Abstract — This paper demonstrates the feasibility of received signal strength (RSS) methods for locating wireless handset calls in a real cellular environment. An extensive measurement campaign conducted on the Georgia Tech campus indicates that RSS location techniques can locate handset calls within 100 m error distance to its ground truth up to 78 % of the time and less than 300 m error distance up to 98 % of the time for a network with a majority of indoor users. This is well above the safety requirements mandated by FCC in the US. We also propose a Received Signal Strength Aggregate (RSSA) method for identifying and locating indoor handsets. Keywords- RSS; Radiolocation; Cellular; Propagation I