Hybrid indoor and outdoor localization for elderly care applications with LoRaWAN

It is common for elderly to experience a decrease in health conditions, limiting independence. Very often, hospitalization is not required and at home assistance is a more effective solution. Ambient assisted living technologies can help in mitigating the need for continuous supervision, enabling the elderly to easily look for help in case of emergency. In this work, the well-known and widespread LoRaWAN communication infrastructure is evaluated for possible complementing indoor and outdoor positioning solutions, in order to alert a remotely-connected caregiver about accidents (e.g., falls). The choice of LoRaWAN is dictated by the capability to implement both private and public infrastructures. Satellite-based systems are addressed for outdoor localization, whereas the demanding task of indoor localization is solved by means of Ultra Wide Band technology. Results demonstrated sub-meter error in a typical indoor scenario, with average communication latency on the order of 700 ms.

[1]  Pascal Sirguey,et al.  Performance and Accuracy of Lightweight and Low-Cost GPS Data Loggers According to Antenna Positions, Fix Intervals, Habitats and Animal Movements , 2015, PloS one.

[2]  Raúl Marín,et al.  Localization of Mobile Sensors and Actuators for Intervention in Low-Visibility Conditions: The ZigBee Fingerprinting Approach , 2012, Int. J. Distributed Sens. Networks.

[3]  Tao Dong,et al.  A Review of Wearable Technologies for Elderly Care that Can Accurately Track Indoor Position, Recognize Physical Activities and Monitor Vital Signs in Real Time , 2017, Sensors.

[4]  Emiliano Sisinni,et al.  Delay Estimation of Industrial IoT Applications Based on Messaging Protocols , 2018, IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement.

[5]  Prabal Dutta,et al.  Luxapose: indoor positioning with mobile phones and visible light , 2014, MobiCom.

[6]  Guangxiang Yang,et al.  A Smart Wireless Paging Sensor Network for Elderly Care Application Using LoRaWAN , 2018, IEEE Sensors Journal.

[7]  Emiliano Sisinni,et al.  Synchronization Uncertainty Versus Power Efficiency in LoRaWAN Networks , 2019, IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement.

[8]  Abraham O. Fapojuwo,et al.  Performance Evaluation of LoRaWAN in North America Urban Scenario , 2018, 2018 IEEE 88th Vehicular Technology Conference (VTC-Fall).

[9]  Kyandoghere Kyamakya,et al.  An Indoor Bluetooth-Based Positioning System: Concept, Implementation and Experimental Evaluation , 2003, International Conference on Wireless Networks.

[10]  Ronald Raulefs,et al.  Recent Advances in Indoor Localization: A Survey on Theoretical Approaches and Applications , 2017, IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials.

[11]  Sergio Montenegro,et al.  Ultra-Wideband Based Pose Estimation for Small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles , 2018, IEEE Access.

[12]  Sebastian Gansemer,et al.  RSSI-based Euclidean Distance algorithm for indoor positioning adapted for the use in dynamically changing WLAN environments and multi-level buildings , 2010, 2010 International Conference on Indoor Positioning and Indoor Navigation.

[13]  Philip A. Catherwood,et al.  LPWAN Wearable Intelligent Healthcare Monitoring for Heart Failure Prevention , 2018 .

[14]  Sozo Inoue,et al.  Sensor-Based Daily Activity Understanding in Caregiving Center , 2019, 2019 IEEE International Conference on Pervasive Computing and Communications Workshops (PerCom Workshops).

[15]  Chankil Lee,et al.  Indoor positioning: A review of indoor ultrasonic positioning systems , 2013, 2013 15th International Conference on Advanced Communications Technology (ICACT).

[16]  A. Flammini,et al.  On the evaluation of application level delays in public LoRaWAN networks , 2019, 2019 IEEE International Symposium on Measurements & Networking (M&N).

[17]  Hiroshi Koezuka.  Utilization of IoT in the long-term care field in Japan , 2016, 2016 2nd International Conference on Cloud Computing and Internet of Things (CCIOT).

[18]  Krit Athikulwongse,et al.  On performance study of UWB real time locating system , 2016, 2016 7th International Conference of Information and Communication Technology for Embedded Systems (IC-ICTES).

[19]  Peter Brida,et al.  Rank based fingerprinting algorithm for indoor positioning , 2011, 2011 International Conference on Indoor Positioning and Indoor Navigation.

[20]  Adriano J. C. Moreira,et al.  Combining similarity functions and majority rules for multi-building, multi-floor, WiFi positioning , 2012, 2012 International Conference on Indoor Positioning and Indoor Navigation (IPIN).

[21]  Emiliano Sisinni,et al.  A test methodology for evaluating architectural delays of LoRaWAN implementations , 2019, Pervasive Mob. Comput..

[22]  Haihong Yu,et al.  Study on Improving GPS Measurement Accuracy , 2005, 2005 IEEE Instrumentationand Measurement Technology Conference Proceedings.

[23]  Mohamed Jmaiel,et al.  IoT-based health monitoring via LoRaWAN , 2017, IEEE EUROCON 2017 -17th International Conference on Smart Technologies.

[24]  Zoran A. Salcic,et al.  A Comparison of Accuracy Using a GPS and a Low-Cost DGPS , 2006, IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement.

[25]  Myong-Soon Park,et al.  An indoor localization mechanism using active RFID tag , 2006, IEEE International Conference on Sensor Networks, Ubiquitous, and Trustworthy Computing (SUTC'06).

[26]  Emiliano Sisinni,et al.  LoRaWAN Range Extender for Industrial IoT , 2020, IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics.

[27]  Paolo Fornacciari,et al.  IoT Wearable Sensor and Deep Learning: An Integrated Approach for Personalized Human Activity Recognition in a Smart Home Environment , 2019, IEEE Internet of Things Journal.

[28]  Ig-Jae Kim,et al.  Indoor location sensing using geo-magnetism , 2011, MobiSys '11.

[29]  Nigel H. Lovell,et al.  Low-Power Fall Detector Using Triaxial Accelerometry and Barometric Pressure Sensing , 2016, IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics.

[30]  Paramvir Bahl,et al.  RADAR: an in-building RF-based user location and tracking system , 2000, Proceedings IEEE INFOCOM 2000. Conference on Computer Communications. Nineteenth Annual Joint Conference of the IEEE Computer and Communications Societies (Cat. No.00CH37064).

[31]  Mahesh Sooriyabandara,et al.  Low Power Wide Area Networks: An Overview , 2016, IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials.