LOCATION-CLUSTERING TECHNIQUES FOR WLAN LOCATION ESTIMATION SYSTEMS: Computing and Results

Location clustering is a technique to significantly reduce the computational requirements of WLAN location determination systems. It provides two algorithms, namely, Joint Clustering and Incremental Triangulation, and describe their tradeoffs between computational cost and location estimation accuracy. Both techniques reduce computational cost by more than an order of magnitude, allowing non-centralized implementation on mobile clients and enabling new context-aware applications. The firm claims to be the only WLAN firm to use clustering techniques commonly found in the world of server farms and supercomputers. Clustering, simply involves dividing administrative tasks among a number of computers that can act as a single system. These clusters can deal with everything from load-balancing to parallel processing tasks.The idea of using multiple network nodes to guard against system fail over is not exactly alien to the WiFi market. Part of the appeal of the wireless LAN switch model is that centrally controlled access points can be made to cover access holes by increasing radio signal strength if one unit fails.