Abstract:
The primary objective of this chapter is to present the audience with a technical introduction to localization methodologies and techniques in order to ubiquitously track a mobile user and to determine the user's spatial context. For outdoor applications, the Global Positioning System (GPS) is used to track users accurately and continuously. For indoor applications, this chapter explores the applicability of wireless technologies, namely Wireless Local Area Networks (WLAN), Ultra-Wide Band (UWB), and Indoor GPS for dynamic user position tracking in situations where GPS is unavailable. The developed methods and the components of the localization systems for pervasive context-aware computing applications have been validated through several experiments conducted at the University of Michigan, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and the Disaster City urban search and rescue test bed in Texas. © 2012 John Wiley and Sons Ltd.