Research of hybrid positioning method based on mine WiFi communication system

The paper analyzed principles of current mine target positioning methods and their existed problems: range-free positioning can only determine range of targe nodes, so it has low positioning precision, such as positioning methods based on radio frequency identification, beehive cell identification and wireless sensor network. Range-based positioning has higher positioning precision, but positioning methods based on angle of arrival, time of arrival and time difference of arrival have higher requirements for hardware devices and are difficult to applied in coal mine underground; positioning method based on received signal strength indication is easy to realize but its positioning precision would reduce due to influence of environmental noise. The paper proposed a hybrid positioning method based on mine WiFi communication system. The method includes coarse positioning and fine positioning: coarse positioning uses range-free positioning method based on beehive cell identification to determine area range of target; fine positioning uses range-based positioning method based on received signal strength indication. The method can improve positioning precision of target without increasing complexity of positioning system.