How can Wi-Fi positioning technology survive in a field full of strong competitors?

Positioning has become an important technology in our daily lives. When we go out, we are supported by satellite positioning technologies such as GNSS, Beidou, GPS, or Beidou/GPS+5G/WiFi fusion. With the increasing demand for indoor application scenarios, people have found that satellite positioning technology is not the optimal solution for such scenarios.

Due to differences in application scenarios, project requirements, and actual conditions, it is difficult to provide services with a unified set of technical standards for indoor positioning, which has led to the increasing diversity of indoor positioning technology solutions in recent years. Industry application solutions such as WiFi positioning, Bluetooth iBeacon positioning, geomagnetic positioning, UWB positioning, and Bluetooth AOA positioning are emerging one after another.

At present, in the indoor positioning market where there is a "hundred schools of thought contending and a hundred flowers blooming" and positioning accuracy is getting higher and higher, is there still room for development of WiFi positioning technology in the indoor positioning market?

WiFi is indispensable for indoor positioning

Compared with the hot UWB and Bluetooth AOA positioning technologies in the past two years, WiFi has weak anti-interference ability and its positioning accuracy is only at the meter level. However, it is superior to transmission distance and extremely low cost. WiFi positioning solutions are very suitable for pan-positioning scenarios, such as department stores, shopping malls, etc. Therefore, WiFi technology also occupies an important position in the development of indoor positioning.

WiFi positioning, as the name implies, is a positioning technology based on WiFi signals. It is divided into passive positioning on the WiFi network side and active positioning on the WiFi terminal side based on the way the positioning signal is obtained.

• Passive positioning on the WiFi network side. It is based on the wireless LAN or dedicated WiFi probe network in the venue. By uniformly receiving WiFi signals on the server side, parsing and calculating them, the location of the smart terminal in the venue is calculated (it does not require the smart terminal to be located to install specific programs, nor does it need to connect to a specific network). WiFi network-side positioning can realize the location perception of wireless network equipment in the venue, and calculate the movement trend of the crowd, crowd density, and movement trajectory of the target object. In an ideal environment, Zhongke Jindian has achieved an average positioning accuracy of about 5 meters in commercial practice.
• Active positioning on the WiFi terminal side. Generally, it is a positioning method represented by WiFi location fingerprint. The WiFi location fingerprint recognition algorithm relies on the signal characteristics sent by the surrounding APs to be received by the terminal for positioning. It uses a database of RSSI signal strength corresponding to the geographical location of the actual site for comparative analysis and identification. Active positioning on the WiFi terminal side was widely used in real-time navigation location services in shopping malls and parking lots in the early stage of indoor positioning development. In an ideal environment, the average accuracy of Zhongke Jingdian's active positioning based on WiFi in commercial practice is about 3 meters.
• WiFi relative positioning. In addition to the above two WiFi positioning methods, there is actually another relative positioning technology that is not well known to the public. Compared with the above two WiFi positioning methods, WiFi relative positioning can achieve distance judgment and even direction identification between two terminals without using a map, using public WiFi signals in the same place. In the commercial practice of Zhongke Jingdian Company, the distance judgment between two terminals without using a map can generally achieve a positioning accuracy of about 5 meters.

Developing segmented WiFi positioning solutions based on scenarios can ensure its own advantages while better optimizing positioning accuracy and realizing the maximum application value of indoor + WiFi.

"Digging for Gold" WiFi Positioning Technology

Although passive positioning on the WiFi network side will be restricted by the privacy protection mechanism of mobile phones in the later stage, for thermal perception of passenger flow distribution in some specific public places, passive positioning on the WiFi network side is still the best solution at present.

The commercial value of WiFi network-side positioning is that it does not require additional equipment. Based on the existing wireless LAN infrastructure, it can obtain the real-time distribution status of the group without the crowd's awareness. It can be used for emergency command in large indoor public places such as airports, stations, and sports centers.

Active positioning on the WiFi terminal side is also subject to the privacy protection strategy of the mobile phone. Many of its indoor real-time navigation applications have turned to the Bluetooth iBeacon technology route, but WiFi terminal positioning still has its special advantages in some specific scenarios. For example, in parks or communities, since there are a large number of wireless APs or home routers distributed in these scenes, they have better WiFi fingerprint characteristics than shopping malls in the past. Based on these WiFi fingerprint characteristics, the APP background positioning method can be used to cooperate with some patrol and inspection business applications, and it can also be used with the Cat.1 patrol badge launched by Zhongke Jindian to achieve ultra-low-cost real-time location attendance and trajectory management for cleaning and security. Compared with the huge hardware investment of UWB or Bluetooth AOA, the WiFi positioning technology combined with the operator's 4G Internet of Things has higher practical commercial value.

WiFi relative positioning, which is not well known to the public, can be used as a technical supplement to existing anti-lost devices to solve the problem that the location of existing anti-lost devices is unknown and difficult to find in indoor scenarios. For example, a pet anti-lost device that integrates WiFi relative positioning can realize the electronic fence setting of pets in the building through the preset "electronic sentinel", so that even if the pet enters the room, its real-time whereabouts can be easily grasped and found.

The scenarios in which the three subdivided WiFi positioning technologies realize commercial value are in line with their own differentiation. The application scenarios are subdivided and customized to achieve higher solution application value. Most WiFi positioning is used for non-sensing positioning of personnel. Therefore, under the current environment, WiFi network-side positioning accounts for the majority of applications.

WiFi positioning has a promising future

According to data from Market & Markets, the global indoor positioning market will grow to US$40.99 billion in 2022 and will maintain a compound growth rate of 42%. Indoor positioning has gradually developed from to B/to G to to C, but business-driven and government-driven are still two very critical factors.

Data source: Market & Markets

According to data from Global Market Insights, the global WiFi chip market size will exceed US$20 billion in 2021, and will reach US$22 billion by 2025. WiFi chips will be the market segment with the most growth potential in the field of wireless communication chips in the future.

ABI Research predicts that the global shipment of WiFi chips will exceed 430 million in 2021 and will exceed 1 billion by 2025. Chips are a rigid demand in WiFi indoor positioning solutions. At the same time, domestic and foreign WiFi chip manufacturers are also keeping up with the development of WiFi technology. WiFi chip manufacturers such as Qualcomm, Broadcom, MediaTek, and Texas Instruments are constantly innovating, and the WiFi 6 chip track is also booming. This trend further consolidates the advantages of WiFi positioning solutions: as the infrastructure of the positioning system, its ubiquitous and low-cost characteristics are irreplaceable.

In the past, WiFi technology was mainly used as a broadband communication network. Later, as Bluetooth and UWB continued to improve positioning technology standards and accuracy, WiFi also entered the positioning track. For example, a PassiveWi-Fi technology developed by the University of Washington can achieve passive sensing at a distance of 30 meters; Google implemented Wi-Fi indoor positioning in Android 9 Pie by using the 802.11mc protocol and RTT (round-trip time), etc. WiFi still plays an important role in changing indoor life.

Final Thoughts

In daily life, WiFi is everywhere, and now every smartphone has WiFi connection function, which makes the cost of Wi-Fi indoor positioning solution very low. Although the location accuracy is not as good as UWB and Bluetooth, and the anti-interference ability is relatively weak, it is a model of communication positioning network, especially in scenes with large coverage area and high traffic volume, so WiFi positioning is very suitable for scenes that need to do personnel management.

Moreover, the current demand for indoor positioning can no longer be met by a single technology. Fusion positioning has begun to become the mainstream of market solutions. Combinations of WiFi+LTE and WiFi+iBeacon have also begun to appear. WiFi positioning will not be unpopular.