In order to investigate what place WiFi fingerprinting has in pedestrian-oriented planning, an interview study was carried out by conducting 12 semi-structured interviews with different actors working in pedestrian-related fields. The actors represent both the private and the public sector, and work in various geographical scales. The interviews investigate what pedestrian-related questions actors work with, what data their work requires and what methods they use to gather the data. For each of these three categories, topics that appeared in over half of the interviews were analyzed qualitatively. With this analysis, relevant applications of WiFi fingerprinting in pedestrian-oriented planning today are identified, namely determining capacity and dimensions, determining the spatial layout of small-scale environments, measuring congestion and providing validation data. The data needs not filled by WiFi fingerprinting are found to be spot-specific information suitable for qualitative analysis, visitor composition and network level flows and movements. Lastly, WiFi fingerprinting can be combined with other data sources to complement its drawbacks as a piece in a puzzle, such as using spot visits to better understand the reasons behind the flow data.

Automation of the forest industry has for over 30 years been an important subject of research, which could reduce the human workload and costs significantly. However, there are still many problems to be solved, such as enabling the communication between the heavy machinery in a forest and a remote base. High speed and reliable communication is the key to automated operations and remote control of machinery. This thesis investigates the feasibility and performance of IEEE 802.11n/ac WiFi hardware to provide high-bandwidth connection in a forest. In this project, the propagation of WiFi signals in the2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands in a typical Nordic forest environment has been simulated using specialized radio propagation software employing ray-tracing and different diffraction models to evaluate the path loss and signal strength. The simulations show that the idea is feasible if high-gain directional antennas are employed, as connections of sufficiently high speed (400+ Mbps for the 5 GHz band) can potentially be established for typical working distances,i.e. 300m. We then designed a directional antenna system and evaluated it in a real Nordic forest environment. We found that by manually aligning the antennas in a forest, reliable connections could be achieved up to 50 m without line-of-sight, however higher distances result in significantly lower speeds (13.3 Mbps at 80 m and 1.21 Mbps at 100 m) due to antenna misalignment. It is however possible to construct a more accurate, automated alignment system, which could replicate the simulation results and fully solve the problem of communication. / Automatiseringen av skogsindustrin har i över 30 år varit ett viktigt forskningsämne, med potential att kraftigt minska människans arbetsbelastning samt kostnader. Det finns dock fortfarande flera problem som behöver lösas inom ämnet, såsom kommunikationen mellan en tung skogsmaskin och en basstation. En stabil höghastighetsuppkoppling är nyckeln till automatiserad drift och fjärrstyrning av maskiner. Det här projektet undersöker möjligheterna och prestandan när IEEE 802.11n/ac WiFi-hårdvara används till att skapa ett högbandbreddsuppkoppling in en skog. Projektet examinerar hur WiFi-signaler i 2.4 GHzsamt 5 GHz-banden sprids i en typisk nordisk skog. Detta görs med hjälp av simulationer utförda i specialiserad radiovågsspridnings mjukvara som använder sig av ray-tracing och olika spridningsmodeller till analyser av signalförluster och uppkopplingens stabilitet. Simulationerna visar att lösningen kan realiseras om riktade antenner med hög förstärkning används då kan uppkopplingar med tillräckligt hög hastighet (400+ Mbps för 5 GHz-bandet) potentiellt erhållas för typiska arbetsavstånd 300 m. Därefter byggdes det ett antennsystem som examinerades i en verklig nordisk skogsmiljö. Då antennerna riktades manuellt, kunde systemet erhålla stabil och snabb uppkoppling på avstånd av upp till 50m i skogsmiljö utan sikte mellan basstation och mottagare. Vid längre avstånd blev dock hastigheterna lägre (13.3 Mbps vid 80 m och 1.21 Mbps vid 100 m) på grund av antennernas felorientering gentemot varandra. Det är dock potentiellt möjligt att kostruera ett mer exakt, automatiserad system som kan återskapa simulationsresultaten och fullständigt lösa kommunikationsproblemet.

The aim of this thesis was to investigate the question of how to harvest RF energy and if we can harvest enough RF energy for it to be useful in an application. It is aimed towards sensor node applications, commonly used in a typical office environment. The WiFi band was chosen since it is omnipresent in the same environment. With the current development within wireless technology and the IoT domain the demand for low power electronic applications has increased and one of the challenges is to find efficient and sustainable ways of powering these types of devices.The best possible theoretical power content was initially calculated followed by measurements in an office. A circuit was designed containing an impedance matching network and rectifier. A measurement application was constructed using a microcontroller. Measurements were made in an office environment and the maximum harvested energy over 24 hours was 350 mJ. The energy was stored in a supercapacitor and is estimated to be enough to power a low energy sensor for about 30 seconds. A large part of the thesis is devoted to impedance matching involving calculating, simulating and experimenting to get a good result. / Med den nuvarande utvecklingen inom trådlös teknik och IoT-domänen har efterfrågan på elektroniska applikationer med låg effekt ökat och en av utmaningarna är att hitta effektiva och hållbara sätt att driva dessa typer av enheter. Syftet med detta projekt var att undersöka frågan hur vi skördar radiovågsenergi och kan vi skörda tillräckligt mycket med energi för att den ska vara användbar i en applikation. I ett typiskt kontor finns fler källor till radiovågor, däribland WiFi som antas ha en hög nyttjandegrad. Projektet valde att inrikta sig på WiFi bandet och undersöka om det går att utvinna tillräckligt med energi där.Projektet strävade efter att leverera en färdig produkt med alla ingående delar, en antenn, en likriktare, en lagringsenhet och ett matchningsnätverk för att anpassa antenn och likriktare till varandra. För att undersöka hur mycket energi som finns att skörda gjordes först beräkningar och sedan mätningar i bland annat ett typiskt kontor. Det konstaterades att det rör sig om väldigt låga nivåer och betonas att de apparater som använder WiFi klarar av att känna av signaler som är långt mycket lägre än de som krävs för att kunna utvinna energi. Detta innebär alltså att apparaterna kan kommunicera felfritt samtidigt som energiinnehållet är så lågt att det inte går att utvinna någon energi.Projektet ägnar stor del åt att optimera den impedansmatchning som måste ske mellan antenn och likriktare för att största möjliga effektutbyte ska kunna ske. Basen är ett kretskort med ett typiskt impedansnätverk och genom beräkningar, simuleringar och experiment tas en prototyp fram. För att kunna analysera resultaten används en mikrokontroller som tar de analoga värdena, omvandlar dem till digitala och skickar dem till en PC för analys.Mätningar gjordes i en kontorsmiljö och den maximala mängden energi som gick att utvinna var 350 mJ på 24 timmar. Energin lagrades i en superkondensator och bedöms vara tillräcklig för att driva en lågenergisensor i ca 30 sekunder.

Modern wireless communication techniques employed in the Wi-Fi® protocol, such as orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing exhibit analogue signals with high peak-to-average power ratio. Therefore, power amplifiers for Wi-Fi suffer from low efficiency when operating in back-off mode, away from their maximum efficiency at peak power. In recent years, digital power amplifiers have been developed to replace their analogue equivalent, taking advantage of easier scaling and circumventing transition frequency issues. Since the digital power amplifier technology for Wi-Fi application is recent, it has not yet replaced robust analogue amplifiers in industrial context. This work proposes to investigate the feasibility and complexity to replace an analogue amplifier with its digital counterpart, with at least the same specification. Among several possible architectures, the reverse class D is chosen for its apparent simplicity. It achieves low power loss into transistors parasitics by operating in square-current mode instead of voltage mode, hence displaying a current-based RF-DAC behaviour. After elaborating the core design with simple efficiency enhancement techniques specific to reverse class D, the layout of the circuitry has been designed. Post-layout simulations have shown the reverse class D digital amplifier designed in CMOS 22nm achieves the required specification of 18dBm average output power with -28dB error vector magnitude in the 2.4GHz range. This basic architecture achieves 19% average drain efficiency, a small improvement over its analogue equivalent currently in use. / Moderna trådlösa kommunikationstekniker som används i Wi-Fi®-protokollet, till exempel ortogonal frekvensdelningsmultiplexering, uppvisar analoga signaler med hög variation i amplitud. Därför har effektförstärkare för Wi-Fi låg verkningsgrad eftersom de arbetar i back-off-läge, långt ifrån sin maximala verkningsgrad vid hög uteffekt. Under de senaste åren har digitala effektförstärkare utvecklats för att byta ut deras analoga motsvarigheter. Eftersom digitala effektförstärkare för Wi-Fi är nya, har de ännu inte ersatt robusta analoga förstärkare i industriella sammanhang. I detta arbete föreslås en undersökning av genomförbarheten och komplexiteten i att ersätta en analog förstärkare med dess digitala motsvarighet, med åtminstone samma specifikation. Bland flera möjliga arkitekturer har den strömbaserade klass D valts på grund av sin enkelhet. Den uppnår låg effektförlust i transistorparasiter genom att arbeta i strömsläge istället för i spänningsläge, och fungerar som en strömbaserade RF-DAC. Efter att ha utarbetat kärnkonstruktionen med enkla tekniker för effektivitetsförbättring som är specifika för strömbaserade klass D har kretsens layout utformats. Simuleringar efter layouten har visat att den digitala förstärkaren i strömbaserade klass D som konstruerats i CMOS 22nm uppnår den nödvändiga specifikationen på 18 dBm genomsnittlig uteffekt med -28 dB felvektorstorlek vid 2,4 GHz. Denna arkitektur uppnår en genomsnittlig verkningsgrad på 19%, vilket är en liten förbättring jämfört med den analoga motsvarighet som för nuvarande används.

Researchers and application designers need repeatable methods to evaluateapplications/systems over WiFi. It is hard to reproduce evaluations overWiFi because of rapidly changing wireless quality over time. In this degreeproject, we present NemFi, a trace-driven emulator for accurately recordingthe WiFi trac and later using it to emulate WiFi links in a repeatable fashion.First, we present the advantages of trace-driven emulation over simulationand experimentation. We capture the uctuating WiFi link conditionsin terms of capacity and losses over time and replay captured behavior forany application running in the emulator. Current record-and-replay techniquesfor web trac and cellular networks do not work for WiFi becauseof their inability to distinguish between WiFi losses and losses due to selfinducedcongestion. They are also lacking other WiFi specic features. Inthe absence of a trace-driven emulator for WiFi, NemFi is also equipped toavoid self-induced packet losses. It is thus capable of isolating WiFi relatedlosses which are then replayed by the NemFi's replay. NemFi's record alsoaddresses the frame aggregation and the eect it has on the actual datatransmission capability over the wireless link. NemFi can record frame aggregation,at all instants of the record phase and later accurately replays theaggregation.Experimental results demonstrate that NemFi is not only accurate inrecording the variable-rate WiFi link but also in capturing cross-trac. NemFialso replays the recorded conditions with considerable accuracy. / Forskare och applikationsdesigners behöver repeterbara metoder för att utvärderaapplikationer och system via WiFi. Det är svårt att reproducera utvärderingar genom WiFi eftersom den trådlösa kvalit´en snabbt förändras över tid. I denna rapport presenterar vi NemFi, en spårstyrd emulator för att noggrant registrera WiFi-trafiken och senare använda den för att emulera WiFi-länkar påett repeterbart sätt. Först presenterar vi fördelarna med spårstyrd emulering jämfört med simulering och experiment. Vi fångar de varierande WiFi förhållanden med avseende påkapacitet och förluster över tid och spelar upp fångat beteende för alla applikationer som körs i emulatorn. Nuvarande inspelning och uppspelningstekniker för webbtrafik och mobilnät fungerar inte för WiFi pågrund av deras oförmåga att skilja mellan WiFi-förluster ochförluster pågrund av självinducerad överbelastning. De saknar ocksåandraWiFi-specifika funktioner. I avsaknad av en spårdriven emulator för WiFi är NemFi ocksåutrustade för att undvika självinducerade paketförluster. Den kan alltsåisolera WiFi-relaterade förluster som sedan spelas upp igen av NemFi: s uppspelning. NemFi adresserar ocksåramaggregering och det är effekten påfaktiska dataöverföringsförmåga via den trådlösa länken. NemFi kan spela in ramsamling, vid alla ögonblick i inspelningsfasen och ersätter senare noggrant aggregeringen.Experimentella resultat visar att NemFi inte bara är användbart när det gäller att registrera WiFi-länken med variabel hastighet, utan ocksåför att fånga tvärgående trafik. NemFi ersätter ocksåde inspelade förhållandena medbetydande noggrannhet.

Board games are on the rise and chess is no exception. However, in an increasingly digitalized world these board games lack something in comparison to digitalized games, being able to play with anyone anywhere. This project aimed to combine these two worlds by being a physical game of chess where one could play against an opponent from far away. CheckMate is a robot consisting of an acrylic frame and various electronic components, such as an electromagnet, two stepper motors, a Hall eect sensor and a WiFi module. The electromagnet and Hall eect sensor were able to move using a belt and pulley system. This allowed magnetic pieces to be identified and dragged across the board. The board then communicated the location of all the pieces on the board, using Wifi, to an website that also kept track on whose turn it was. The result of this project was a robot that was able to perform all the moves necessary on the chessboard as well as communicating to the website. When moving a piece from one location to another the piece repelled other pieces on its way. However, this was deemed to be acceptable since the pieces were not moved too large of a distance for the electromagnet to attract them when moved into its square. One move that the robot was not able to perform was castling. The results can therefore bee seen as a starting point toward further developments. / Brädspels popularitet stiger och schack är inget undantag. Dock saknar brädspel de digitala spelens möjlighet att spela med vem som helst varsomhelst. Detta projekt ville bygga över klyftorna mellan dessa två världar genom att vara ett fysiskt schackspel med de digitala spelens möjligheter. CheckMate är en robot byggd av akrylplast och diverse elektroniska komponenter sådan som en elektromagnet, två stegmotorer, en halleektsensor och en WiFi-modul. Elektromagneten och halleektsensorn förflyttades via ett system av kuggremmar drivet av stegmotorerna. Elektromagneten användes för att flytta pjäserna på brädet medan halleektsensorn användes vid kartläggning av pjäsernas position på brädet. Brädet kommunicerade, via trådlöst nätverk, till en hemsida som användes för att spara och överföra pjäsernas positioner. Projektet resulterade i en robot som kunde göra alla motsvarande drag hämtat från hemsidan. Dock så repellerade en flyttande pjäs på de stationära pjäserna när den passerade. Detta ansågs dock vara acceptabelt då elektromagneten kunde föra tillbaka pjäserna när den befann sig i dess ruta. Något som projektet ej lyckades utföra var draget rockad. Resultatet av detta projekt kan ses som en startpunkt i en vidareutveckling eller en färdig produkt vid obesvärad spelning.

The focus of this study was to investigate an alternative and more cost effective solution for occupancy sensing in commercial office buildings. The intended purpose of this solution is to aid in efficient energy management. The main requirements were that the proposed solution made use of existing infrastructure only, and provided a means to focus on occupant location. This research was undertaken due to current solutions making use of custom occupancy sensors that are relatively costly and troublesome to implement. These solutions focus mainly on monitoring environmental changes, and not the physical locations of the occupants themselves. Furthermore, current occupancy sensing solutions are unable to provide proximity and timing information that indicate how far an occupant is located from a specific area, or how long the occupant resided there. The research question was answered by conducting a proof of concept study with data simulated in the OMNeT++ environment in conjunction with the MiXiM framework for wireless networks. The proposed solution investigated the fidelity of existing WiFi infrastructure for occupancy sensing, this entailed the creation of a Virtual Occupancy Sensor (VOS) that implemented RSS-based localisation for an occupant’s WiFi devices. Localisation was implemented with three different location estimation techniques; these were trilateration, constrained nearest neighbour RF mapping and unconstrained nearest neighbour RF mapping. The obtained positioning data was interpreted by a developed intelligent agent that was able to transform this regular position data into relevant occupancy information. This information included a distance from office measurement and an occupancy result that can be interpreted by existing energy management systems. The accuracy and operational behaviour of the developed VOS were tested with various scenarios. Sensitivity analysis and extreme condition testing were also conducted. Results showed that the constrained nearest neighbour RF mapping approach is the most accurate, and is best suited for occupancy determination. The created VOS system can function correctly with various tested sensitivities and device loads. Furthermore results indicated that the VOS is very accurate in determining room level occupancy although the accuracy of the position coordinate estimations fluctuated considerably. The operational behaviour of the VOS could be validated for all investigated scenarios. It was determined that the developed VOS can be deemed fit for its intended purpose, and is able to give indication to occupant proximity and movement timing. The conducted research confirmed the fidelity of WiFi infrastructure for occupancy sensing, and that the developed VOS can be considered a viable and cost effective alternative to current occupancy sensing solutions. / MIng (Computer and Electronic Engineering), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

The focus of this study was to investigate an alternative and more cost effective solution for occupancy sensing in commercial office buildings. The intended purpose of this solution is to aid in efficient energy management. The main requirements were that the proposed solution made use of existing infrastructure only, and provided a means to focus on occupant location. This research was undertaken due to current solutions making use of custom occupancy sensors that are relatively costly and troublesome to implement. These solutions focus mainly on monitoring environmental changes, and not the physical locations of the occupants themselves. Furthermore, current occupancy sensing solutions are unable to provide proximity and timing information that indicate how far an occupant is located from a specific area, or how long the occupant resided there. The research question was answered by conducting a proof of concept study with data simulated in the OMNeT++ environment in conjunction with the MiXiM framework for wireless networks. The proposed solution investigated the fidelity of existing WiFi infrastructure for occupancy sensing, this entailed the creation of a Virtual Occupancy Sensor (VOS) that implemented RSS-based localisation for an occupant’s WiFi devices. Localisation was implemented with three different location estimation techniques; these were trilateration, constrained nearest neighbour RF mapping and unconstrained nearest neighbour RF mapping. The obtained positioning data was interpreted by a developed intelligent agent that was able to transform this regular position data into relevant occupancy information. This information included a distance from office measurement and an occupancy result that can be interpreted by existing energy management systems. The accuracy and operational behaviour of the developed VOS were tested with various scenarios. Sensitivity analysis and extreme condition testing were also conducted. Results showed that the constrained nearest neighbour RF mapping approach is the most accurate, and is best suited for occupancy determination. The created VOS system can function correctly with various tested sensitivities and device loads. Furthermore results indicated that the VOS is very accurate in determining room level occupancy although the accuracy of the position coordinate estimations fluctuated considerably. The operational behaviour of the VOS could be validated for all investigated scenarios. It was determined that the developed VOS can be deemed fit for its intended purpose, and is able to give indication to occupant proximity and movement timing. The conducted research confirmed the fidelity of WiFi infrastructure for occupancy sensing, and that the developed VOS can be considered a viable and cost effective alternative to current occupancy sensing solutions. / MIng (Computer and Electronic Engineering), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

The IEEE 802.15.4 standard is an interesting technology for use in Wireless Body Sensor Networks (WBSN), where entire networks of sensors are carried by humans. In many environments the sensor nodes experience external interference for example, when the WBSN is operated in the 2.4 GHz ISM band and the human moves in a densely populated city, it will likely experience WiFi interference, with a quickly changing ``interference landscape''. In this thesis we propose Adaptive Resource Allocation schemes, to be carried out by the WBSN, which provided noticeable performance gains in such environments. We investigate a range of adaptation schemes and assess their performance both through simulations and experimentally.

A technique is proposed to improve the accuracy of indoor positioning systems based on WIFI radio-frequency signals by using dynamic access points and fingerprints (DAFs). Moreover, an indoor position system that relies solely in DAFs is proposed. The walking pattern of indoor users is classified as dynamic or static for indoor positioning purposes. I demonstrate that the performance of a conventional indoor positioning system that uses static fingerprints can be enhanced by considering dynamic fingerprints and access points. The accuracy of the system is evaluated using four positioning algorithms and two random access point selection strategies. The system facilitates the location of people where there is no wireless local area network (WLAN) infrastructure deployed or where the WLAN infrastructure has been drastically affected, for example by natural disasters. The system can be used for search and rescue operations and for expanding the coverage of an indoor positioning system.