Next Generation Wi-Fi Positioning: An overview of the IEEE 802.11az protocol
Roy Want (Google)
Research Talk
Tuesday, July 18, 2023, 3:30 pm
Abstract
Accurate indoor location (within 1 meter) is a goal of the Android Location team, and related projects in Google's Better Together program. The new IEEE 802.11az protocol, recently published by the IEEE Standards Association (March 2023), brings us closer to that realization. This talk provides an overview of the 11az protocol, improving on 11mc, covering its capabilities for: scalable and secure ranging, both at the MAC and PHY layer; improved accuracy, utilizing full MIMO to reduce the effect of multi-path; and optimized energy use with shorter protocol exchanges, and lower channel-utilization when ranging to multiple stations in parallel. We expect 11az to be supported by Android smartphones within a couple of years, and Wi-Fi Access Points that have already been updated to Wi-Fi 6 or later.
Bio
Dr. Roy Want received his doctorate from Cambridge University, England in 1988, and is currently a Senior Research Scientist at Google. Previous positions include Sr. Principal Engineer at Intel Corporation, and a Principal Scientist at Xerox PARC. He holds the grade of ACM and IEEE Fellow. His research interests include mobile and ubiquitous computing, context-aware applications, and electronic identification. He has more than 30 years' experience working in the field of mobile computing. He served as: Editor-in-chief for IEEE Pervasive Computing from 2006-2009, Chair of the ACM SIGMOBILE executive committee from 2009-12, and received the ACM SIGMOBILE Outstanding Contributions Award (OCA) in 2019. He has authored or co-authored more than 85 publications, with 100+ issued patents in this area. For more information about Dr. Want's academic and industrial achievements see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Want.
A recording of this talk is available here.