Object Search for the Internet of Things Using Tag-based Location Signatures

摘要

In this paper, an object search solution for theInternet of Things (IoT) is proposed. This study firstdifferentiates localization and searching. Localization is tocalculate an object’s current location. Searching is to returna set of locations where a target object could be. It ispossible that the locations of the returned set are notcontiguous. Searching accuracy can be improved if thenumber of the returned locations is small. Even thoughlocalization technique is applicable to searching applications,a simpler and easier solution will attract more enterpriseusers. In this paper, based on a concept called locationsignature, defined by a set of reference tags, an objectsearching method named Location Signature Search (LSS)is proposed. The study of LSS shows that the searchingaccuracy can be very high if a location signature is notshared by too many locations. Since location signatures areaffected by the deployment of the reference tags, trade-offbetween searching accuracy and implementation cost isachievable. A real world experiment is conducted in thisresearch. The results show that LSS indeed is a practicalmethod for object searching applications.