In recent years, Smart Grid have become the center of interest for IT companies and construction companies and various types of Smart Grids have been made currently available on the market. Yet, equipment is costly and it is not easy to convert existing equipment for Smart Grid application as they may require additional resources which could also inflict much costs. The extra costs involving the remodeling of existing housing structure and installment of new equipment can be avoided by using advanced wireless technologies. As an example, this book proposed an indoor localization system that adopts Bluetooth technology and uses RSSI (Received Signal Strength Indication) values for localization. Researchers have configured a system where the central control device will recognize all other devices or equipment in the system, communicate with each other, and respond to the commands or the information provided. However, despite the efforts of many researchers, existing RSSI-based indoor localization systems do not show a satisfactory level of accuracy such that we have devised a system that traces the trend in the RSSI samples.
Top1. Introduction
Like many other IT-advanced countries, Smart Grids are attracting more and more customers in recent years, with devices and equipment associated with Smart Grids continually increasing presenting, more convenient or novel functions. Contrary to such an environment, the cost of constructing or remodeling existing households to adapt Smart functions is increasing as these works (i.e., installing new equipment, setting up new systems and adding new functions) often involve time-consuming and costly operations. Such being the case, we have devised a system that can recognize the conditions of present household appliances, analyze the data and place appropriate commands, and initiate the movements according to them. Here, the 2 most important factors were ‘Cost Saving’ and ‘Accuracy’. The former is related to reducing or avoiding additional device installments and the latter is associated with developing a better algorithm.
As an example of achieving these goals, we have designed an Indoor Localization System that displays a higher level of accuracy than GPS and other similar positioning systems by incorporating Bluetooth technology and RSSI-based algorithm without costly structural changes.
Our system will pinpoint the target objects inside the household by triangulating the signals from the reference terminals (e.g., beacons or other signal-generating devices). Figure 1 shows Bluetooth BLE-based location tracking. Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) technology has been applied for the beacons considering energy efficiency.
Figure 1. Bluetooth BLE-based location tracking
With Bluetooth technology, the intensity of signals and their unique identifiers can be distinguished and the position of a certain beacon can be identified through the relevant identifier. Additionally, the distance between the beacon and a fixed point can be estimated using RSSI so that by accumulating and analyzing such information from all of the beacons, the user’s position can be approximated. Since most Smart Phones are embedded with Bluetooth function nowadays, one can avoid purchasing another one to use it as a measuring tool. There are some other products that have a similar function as Bluetooth but they often need to be calibrated with the smooth filter or field data such that they may not provide accurate data. To deal with this problem, we proposed an RSSI sampling method with a trend tracing function.
Top2.1 iBeacon
The iBeacon is a wireless beacon protocol that has been proposed by Apple, Inc. It is built on the principle of BLE technology and designed to broadcast a beacon’s information on a regular cycle to let the device to receive them and make decisions. The information to be broadcasted is listed in the Table 1.
Table 1. Information to be broadcasting
| Condition | Information |
| iBeacon Protocol Prefix | Indicating that the iBeacon protocol is in use |
| iBeacon UUID | Unique identifier of the installed beacon |
| Major Code | Major value (e.g., main building) of the installed beacon |
| Minor Code | Minor value (e.g., 1st lobby) of the installed beacon |
Basically, iBeacon was designed and used for product arrangement guidance for offline shopping so that it include a function of measuring rough distances to a beacon using each beacon’s RSSI. However, the measurements are classified into only 3 categories (i.e., Close, Away, Far), and only the adjacent information of the relevant beacon is provided after establishing one-to-one relationship. Currently, many hardware companies manufacture and sell the beacons that follow iBeacon protocol.