Hybrid indoor location: Simultaneous zone and coordinates based location for AAL environments with 802.11 fingerprinting technology

The continuous both indoor and outdoor location of subjects is an essential capability within AAL systems. It enables adaptive and context-aware behavior within the services implemented. In AAL systems, location information has been managed in a simplistic way until now: i.e. it refers either to specific rooms or concrete (x, y) coordinates within the elder's home. Un- derstanding it as specific rooms is the most usual approach. In this paper we argue that managing both information granularity levels simultaneously is also interesting within AAL. And we restrict the discussion to 802.11 fingerprinting based indoor loca- tion technologies. We present here how to systematically build and evaluate 802.11 fingerprinting based indoor location systems for both approaches and how to integrate them within a unique service. In regard to fingerprinting methods, managing both information levels simultaneously allows reducing deployment and maintenance cost for such technology.