Combinatorial Data Augmentation: A Key Enabler to Bridge Geometry- and Data-Driven WiFi Positioning

Due to the emergence of various wireless sensing technologies, numerous positioning algorithms have been introduced in the literature, categorized into <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">geometry-driven positioning</i> (GP) and <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">data-driven positioning</i> (DP). These approaches have respective limitations, e.g., a non-line-of-sight issue for GP and the lack of a high-dimensional and labeled dataset for DP, which could be complemented by integrating both methods. To this end, this paper aims to introduce a novel principle called <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">combinatorial data augmentation</i> (CDA), a catalyst for the two approaches’ seamless integration. Specifically, GP-based data samples augmented from different positioning element combinations are called <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">preliminary estimated locations</i> (PELs), which can be used as high-dimensional inputs for DP. We confirm the CDA’s effectiveness from field experiments based on WiFi <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">round-trip times</i> (RTTs) and <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">inertial measurement units</i> (IMUs) by designing several CDA-based positioning algorithms. First, we show that CDA offers various metrics quantifying each PEL’s reliability, thereby extracting important PELs for WiFi RTT positioning. Second, CDA helps compute the observation error covariance matrix of a Kalman filter for fusing two position estimates derived by WiFi RTTs and IMUs. Third, we use the important PELs and the above position estimate as the corresponding input feature and the real-time label for fingerprint-based positioning as a representative DP algorithm. It provides accurate and reliable positioning results, with an average positioning error of 1.58 (m) and a standard deviation of 0.90 (m).