A Feasibility Study into Tracking Wi-Fi Enabled Mobile Devices |
Modern mobile and portable devices such as laptops and smart phones are expensive
Dagnall M, Clarke NL
technologies that are often the target of theft. In the event that they are lost or stolen, it is
desirable to recover them and their contents if possible. Whilst existing tracker technologies
can often provide a rough geo-location, they lack in providing resolution in the last few
hundred meters. This research focuses on the development of a mobile system for locating
WiFi enabled portable devices via the WiFi signal emanating from them. A mobile
localisation system utilising a combination of a directional Yagi antenna and the received
signal strength was developed and shown to be effective at locating WiFi sources at ranges
from 45m to 500m away depending on the environment.