Wi-Fi Fingerprinting

An indoor localization technique that estimates a device's position by comparing the signal strengths of nearby Wi-Fi access points against a pre-collected database of "fingerprints" — measurements taken at known reference points across a building. Because Wi-Fi access points are already deployed in most large public spaces, fingerprinting can provide indoor navigation without the cost of installing dedicated Bluetooth Low Energy beacons. For accessibility, Wi-Fi fingerprinting is an emerging alternative to BLE for indoor blind navigation systems; recent platforms including Apple Maps indoor positioning and Android's Wi-Fi RTT (Round-Trip-Time) API support fingerprinting-based localization.