Evaluation of Four Classifiers as Cost Function for Indoor Location Systems

Abstract In our previous research work, we proposed a methodology that uses magnetic-field and multivariate methods to estimate user location in an indoor environment. In this paper, we propose the use of this methodology to evaluate the performance of four different classification algorithms: Random Forest, Nearest Centroid, K Nearest Neighbors and Artificial Neural Networks; each classifier will be considered as a cost function of a genetic algorithm (GA) used in the feature selection process task of the methodology. The motivation to evaluate the algorithms of classification was that several ILSs use a classification algorithm in order to estimate the location of the user, but the classifiers performance vary from application to application. In order to evaluate the performance of each classification algorithm, the following issues were considered: (1) the time of the training phase to obtain the final classification algorithm; (2) the number of features needed for getting the model; (3) the type of the features from the final model; and (4) the sensitivity and specificity of the model. Our results indicate that Nearest centroid is the classfier algorithm that is best suited to be implemented in an end-user application given the obtained results on the evaluated criteria for the indoor location system (ILS).