Combining Indoor Positioning Using Wi-Fi Round Trip Time with Dust Measurement in the Field of Occupational Health

• Published in: Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) Vol. 21; no. 21; p. 7261
• Main Authors: Ando, Hajime, Sekoguchi, Shingo, Ikegami, Kazunori, Yoshitake, Hidetaka, Baba, Hiroka, Myojo, Toshihiko, Ogami, Akira
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Basel MDPI AG 31.10.2021; MDPI
• Subjects: Accuracy; Dust; Error analysis; Factories; Global positioning systems; GPS; Hazardous materials; Humidification; indoor positioning; Lasers; Occupational health; Position measurement; Sensors; Smartphones; Sodium chloride; Time measurement; wearable particle monitor; Wi-Fi RTT; Work environment; United States > US; Japan
• ISSN: 1424-8220; 1424-8220
• DOI: 10.3390/s21217261

Monitoring of personal exposure to hazardous substances has garnered increasing attention over the past few years. However, no straightforward and exact indoor positioning technique has been available until the recent discovery of Wi-Fi round trip time (Wi-Fi RTT). In this study, we investigated the possibility of using a combination of Wi-Fi RTT for indoor positioning and a wearable particle monitor (WPM) to observe dust concentration during walking in a simulated factory. Ultrasonic humidifiers were used to spray sodium chloride solution inside the factory. The measurements were recorded three times on different routes (Experiments A, B, and C). The error percentages, i.e., measurements that were outside the expected measurement area, were 7% (49 s/700 s) in Experiment A, 2.3% (15 s/660 s) in Experiment B, and 7.8% (50 s/645 s) in Experiment C. The dust measurements were also recorded without any obstruction. A heat map was created based on the results from both measured values. Wi-Fi RTT proved useful for computing the indoor position with high accuracy, suggesting the applicability of the proposed methodology for occupational health monitoring.