Adaptive Estimation of WiFi RSSI and Its Impact Over Advanced Wireless Services

• Published in: Mobile networks and applications Vol. 22; no. 6; pp. 1100 - 1112
• Main Authors: Santana, José Aurelio, Macías, Elsa, Suárez, Álvaro, Marrero, Domingo, Mena, Vicente
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Springer US 01.12.2017; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Communications Engineering; Computer Communication Networks; Electrical Engineering; Engineering; IT in Business; Long term; Networks; Signal strength; Volatility; RSSI; Moving average; Software defined networking; Estimation; Wireless fidelity
• ISSN: 1383-469X; 1572-8153
• DOI: 10.1007/s11036-016-0729-1

RSSI is a reference magnitude of radio signal strength received by a wireless terminal. Traditionally, it has been used to implement wireless services like scanning in handoff . But its high long term variability ( volatility ) makes its high precision estimation be impossible, complicating its applicability. Moreover, every wireless terminal has its own way to provide RSSI. Recently a high impact paper has formally shown that RSSI of laboratory radio signal in WiFi always reverts to its mean. That is, its long term stability can be estimated. We present a new RSSI estimation model that improves other recently published methods; and shows that it can be used, in contrast with those other techniques, to a wide range of current wireless terminals and real world scenarios. We also show its applicability to indoor localization service, by observing how it can be used in a recent high impact paper and improving another paper also published in a high impact journal. Our method can be used in SDN.