IFLoc: Indoor Height Estimation by Telco Data

Understanding the fine-grained distribution of telecommunication (Telco) signals in terms of a three-dimensional (3D) space is important for Telco operators to manage, operate and optimize Telco networks. It is particularly true in nowadays urban cities with a large number of high buildings. One of the key tasks is to infer the location height of mobile devices, e.g., the floor within a high building where mobile devices are located. However, precise height estimation is challenging due to complex Telco signal propagation within an indoor 3D space, sparse cell tower deployment and scarce training samples. To tackle these issues, in this paper, we propose an indoor MR height estimation framework, namely IFLoc, via a machine learning model. IFLoc first builds a training MR database via a pre-processing step to comfortably tag raw MR samples by precisely inferred height from auxiliary data such as GPS and barometer readings. Next, IFLoc trains a regression model for height estimation by a set of developed techniques including 3D space division, post-processing techniques, feature augmentation and an improved SVR (Supported Vector Regression) model. Our evaluation on eight real datasets collected within five representative high buildings in Shanghai validates that IFLoc outperforms state-of-the-art counterparts in particularly with scarce training data.