An Improved WiFi/PDR Integrated System Using an Adaptive and Robust Filter for Indoor Localization

Location-based services (LBS) are services offered through a mobile device that take into account a device’s geographical location. To provide position information for these services, location is a key process. GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) can provide sub-meter accuracy in open-sky areas using satellite signals. However, for indoor and dense urban environments, the accuracy deteriorates significantly because of weak signals and dense multipaths. The situation becomes worse in indoor environments where the GNSS signals are unreliable or totally blocked. To improve the accuracy of indoor positioning for location-based services, an improved WiFi/Pedestrian Dead Reckoning (PDR) integrated positioning and navigation system using an adaptive and robust filter is presented. The adaptive filter is based on scenario and motion state recognition and the robust filter is based on the Mahalanobis distance. They are combined and used in the WiFi/PDR integrated system to weaken the effect of gross errors on the dynamic and observation models. To validate their performance in the WiFi/PDR integrated system, a real indoor localization experiment is conducted. The results indicate that the adaptive filter is better able to adapt to the circumstances of the dynamic model by adjusting the covariance of the process noise and the robust Kalman filter is able to mitigate the harmful effect of gross errors from the WiFi positioning.