Chapter

Pervasive Computing

Volume 3468 of the series Lecture Notes in Computer Science pp 116-133

Place Lab: Device Positioning Using Radio Beacons in the Wild

  • Anthony LaMarcaAffiliated withIntel Research Seattle
  • , Yatin ChawatheAffiliated withIntel Research Seattle
  • , Sunny ConsolvoAffiliated withIntel Research Seattle
  • , Jeffrey HightowerAffiliated withIntel Research Seattle
  • , Ian SmithAffiliated withIntel Research Seattle
  • , James ScottAffiliated withIntel Research Cambridge
  • , Timothy SohnAffiliated withDepartment of Computer Science, UC
  • , James HowardAffiliated withDepartment of Computer Science & Engineering, University of Washington
  • , Jeff HughesAffiliated withDepartment of Computer Science & Engineering, University of Washington
    • , Fred PotterAffiliated withDepartment of Computer Science & Engineering, University of Washington
    • , Jason TabertAffiliated withInformation School, University of Washington
    • , Pauline PowledgeAffiliated withIntel Research Seattle
    • , Gaetano BorrielloAffiliated withDepartment of Computer Science & Engineering, University of Washington
    • , Bill SchilitAffiliated withIntel Research Seattle

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Abstract

Location awareness is an important capability for mobile computing. Yet inexpensive, pervasive positioning—a requirement for wide-scale adoption of location-aware computing—has been elusive. We demonstrate a radio beacon-based approach to location, called Place Lab, that can overcome the lack of ubiquity and high-cost found in existing location sensing approaches. Using Place Lab, commodity laptops, PDAs and cell phones estimate their position by listening for the cell IDs of fixed radio beacons, such as wireless access points, and referencing the beacons’ positions in a cached database. We present experimental results showing that 802.11 and GSM beacons are sufficiently pervasive in the greater Seattle area to achieve 20-30 meter median accuracy with nearly 100% coverage measured by availability in people’s daily lives.