equipment tracking and security system for hospital...
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EQUIPMENT TRACKING AND SECURITY SYSTEM FOR HOSPITAL
ENVIRONMENT USING WLAN INDOOR LOCATION TRACKING SYSTEM
ZUHER H.M FHELELBOOM
UNIVERSITI TEKNOLOGI MALAYSIA
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To God the Almighty, without whom knowledge without faith is fruitless and
to my parent, who have molded me into who I am.
iv
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, and Most Merciful
First, I would like to take this opportunity to express my sincere and utmost
gratitude to my project supervisor Prof.Dr Tharek Bin Abdul Rahman for this vision,
guidance and support throughout the duration that I undertook to complete this
project successfully.
Secondly, I would like to convey my deepest gratitude to Mr. Chua Tien Han,
for preparing the relevant groundwork for research in the field of indoor location
tracking in the Wireless Communication centre, P15, Faculty of Electrical
Engineering, UTM. His suggestions and comments on methodologies that I chose
helped me avoid the common pitfalls in this filed of work
Also I would like to thank friends and stuff in (WCC) for their help facilities
and for providing conductive working environment
I would like also to express my gratitude to Mr. Usman Ullah Sheikh, mentor
friend and guru during software development phase utilizing Java. His tips and
advice help quicken my learning curve in java programming.
Last but not least, I would like to thank my parents, my siblings and all my
friends that have given their moral support during the ups and down of my project
work life cycle.
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ABSTRACT
Location tracking systems has brought tremendous benefits, especially to the
medical field; one of its benefits is to help keeping track of critical equipment of the
hospital which is a challenge in any hospitals. However hospital's equipment often
scattered throughout the facility, forcing busy staff to waste precious time tracking
down intravenous pumps, wheelchairs or other equipment. Furthermore, hospital also
suffers the lost of the equipment due to thefts. Therefore, equipment management
system using Wireless Location Area (WLAN) based indoor location tracking
system is proposed to alleviate these problems. A simple measurement campaign will
be conducted to study the properties of the Ekahau location tracking system and then
the equipment management system which include real-time equipment tracking and
security system. Ekahau WLAN-based indoor location tracking system will be
applied in this project to provide real-time location estimation. Each equipment will
equipped with Ekahau WLAN Tag, and its location will be calculated by the Ekahau
engine server. The location is predicated through WLAN signal strength finger-
printing technique. Requirements of basic equipment tracking and security will be
developed and examined in Java platform. A test-bed would then be setup within the
confines of the WCC (wireless Communication Centre) using the existing WLAN
incorporating the IEEE 802.11g standard AP (Access Point) and adapters. The
location of the equipment will be provided by Ekahau positioning engine software
readily available at the WCC. At the end of the project, a system which is capable to
provide real-time equipment's location to user will be developed. Besides that the
system will be capable to give alert to the control centre if the hospital's equipment is
brought out from the authorized area.
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ABSTRAK
Sistem penjejak lokasi telah membawa manfaat yang sangat besar,
terutamanya kepada bidang perubatan, salah satu manfaatnya ialah membantu
menjejak peralatan kritikal hospital, dimana ia merupakan satu cabaran dimana-mana
hospital. Walau bagaimanapun peralatan hospital sering bertempiaran di sekitar
kemudahan hospital. Ini memaksa staf yang sibuk membazir masa yang berharga
untuk menjejak pam intravena, kerusi beroda, atau peralatan lain. Tambahan lagi
hospital juga mengalami kehilangan peralatan akibat pencuri. Oleh yang demikian,
sistem pengurusan peralatan menggunakan sistem penjejak lokasi dalam bangunan
berasaskan rangkaian kawasan setempat wayerles (WLAN) dicadangkan untuk
meringankan masalah-masalah ini. Satu kempen pengukuran mudah akan dijalankan
untuk mengkaji ciri-ciri sistem penjejak lokasi Ekahau dan kemudiannya sistem
pengurusan peralatan yang merangkumi penjejakan peralatan masa-nyata dan sistem
keselamatan. Sistem penjejak lokasi dalam bangunan Ekahau yang berasaskan
WLAN akan digunakan dalam projek ini untuk membekalkan penganggaran lokasi
masa-nyata. Setiap peralatan akan dilengkapi dengan tag WLAN Ekahau dan
lokasinya akan dkira oleh pelayan enjin Ekahau. Lokasi diramal melalui teknik
pencap-jarian kekuatan isyarat WLAN. Keperluan-keperluan asas penjejakan
peralatan dan keselamatan akan dibangunkan dan diselidik dalam platform Java.
Tapak pengujian kemudiannya akan dibentuk di pusat komunikasi wayarles (WCC)
dengan menggunakan WLAN sedia ada yang menggabungkan titik capaian (AP)
TEEE802.11g dan adapter. Lokasi peralatan akan diberi oleh perisian enjin lokasi
Ekahau yang sedia ada di WCC. Di penghujung projek, sebuah sistem yang berupaya
untuk memberi lokasi masa-nyata peralatan kepada pengguna akan dibangunkan.
Disamping itu, sistem tersebut akan berupaya memberi amaran kepada pusat kawalan
jika peralatan hospital dibawa keluar daripada kawasan yang dibenarkan.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER TITLE PAGE
DECLARATION ii.
DEDICATION iii.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT iv.
ABSTRACT v.
ABSTRAK vi.
TABLES OF CONTENTS vii.
LIST OF FIGURES xi.
LIST OF TABLES xiv.
LIST OF ABREVIATIONS xv.
LIST OF APPENDIX xvi.
1 INTRODUCTION 1
1.1 Introduction 1
1.2 Problem Statement 3
1.3 Objective 3
1.4 Scope of Work 4
1.5 Thesis Organization 6
2 LITERATURE REVIEW 7
2.1 Positioning System 7
2.2 Classification of Positioning Infrastructures 9
2.2.1 Integrated and Stand-Alone
Infrastructures 9
2.2.2 Network and Terminal-based Positioning 10
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2.2.3 Satellites, Cellular, and Indoor
Infrastructures 11
2.2.3.1 Satellite Infrastructures 11
2.2.3.2 Cellular Infrastructures 12
2.2.3.3 Indoor Infrastructures 13
2.3 Global Positioning System (GPS) 13
2.3.1 Space Segment 13
2.3.2 Control Segment 14
2.3.3 User Segment 15
2.4 Cell of Origin (COO) /Cell ID (CID) 17
2.4.1 Cell of Origin (COO) /Cell ID (CID)
Positioning Technique 18
2.4.1.1 Timing Measurements
TOA/TDOA 18
2.4.1.2 Angle of Arrival 19
2.4.1.3 Enhanced-Observed Time
Difference 20
2.5 Indoor Positioning System 21
2.5.1 Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) 21
2.5.1.1 Principles of WLAN Positioning 22
2.5.1.2 WLAN Fingerprinting 23
2.5.2 RFID Positioning 25
2.5.3 Infrared (IR) Based 26
2.5.4 Ultrasound-based Systems 28
2.6 Ekahau Positioning Engine 29
2.6.1 Positioning Engine Architecture 31
2.6.1.1 Hardware Components 31
2.6.1.2 Software Components 33
2.6.2 Positioning Method
33
2.7 Market segments of Location Based Services 34
3 SYSTEM DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT 35
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3.1 Designing and Developing Real Time Equipment
Tracking System 35
3.2 Indoor WLAN positioning engine (Ekahau
Positioning Engine 3.) 39
3.3 Test-Bed selection 40
3.4 Hardware Specification and Setup 40
3.4.1 Wireless IEEE 802.11g Access. points 41
3.4.2 Mobile Station (Laptop) 43
3.4.3 Ekahau T101 Wi-Fi Tag 44
3.5 Ekahau Software Setup (both engine and client) 46
3.6 Ekahau site Calibration 48
3.7 Software Development Tools 50
3.7.1 Ekahau Software Development Kit 3.0
(SDK 3.0) 51
3.7.2 Selection of SDK™ Java API or Ekahau YAX™
51
3.7.3 Understanding Location Estimates 52
3.7.4 Understanding the Logical Areas 53
3.7.5.1 Creating Logical Areas 53
3.8 Java and the Java Development Kit (JDK 1.4.2) 54
3.8.1 Mastering a Java Integrated Development Environment (IDE)-JBuilder
55
3.8.1.1 JBuilder Workspace 55
3.9 Development of Equipment Tracking System user-
interface Module 56
3.10 Development of Tracking Module 56
3.11 Trail Run of the System 57
3.12 WLAN Signal Strength (SS) Measurement 57
3.13 The Effect of Access Points and Calibration
Nodes on the Accuracy 58
4 PROGRAM IMPLEMENTATION AND
DISCUSSION 59
4.1 Positioning System Program Requirement 59
4.2 Program Functionality 60
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4.3 Program Implementation 61
5 PROPERTIES of WLAN-BASED INDOOR
LOCATION TRACKING SYSTEM 64
5.1 Properties WLAN Signal Strength 64
5.1.1 Properties of Signal Strength at Different
Time 65
5.1.2 Properties of Signal Strength at Different
Locations 66
5.2 Effects of Number of APs on the Accuracy 70
5.3 Effects of Number of Calibration Nodes on the
Accuracy. 71
6 CONCLUSION AND PROPOSED FUTURE WORK
72
6.1 Conclusion 72
6.2 Future Works 73
REFERENCES 74
APPENDICES A-E 77-102
xi
LIST OF FIGURES
FIGURE NO. TITLE PAGE
1.1 Tree diagram of location-A ware Equipment tracking and
security system using WLAN indoor location tracking
system
5
2.1 Positioning Infrastructures 8
2.2 Classification scheme for Positioning Infrastructures 9
2.3 GPS Constellation 14
2.4 GPS Control stations 15
2.5 GPS Absolute Positioning 16
2.6 GPS Positioning Based on Time of Arrival Principles 16
2.7 Base Station Configurations in a Cellular Network 17
2.8 Cell-ID Methods 18
2.9 TOA/TDOA 19
2.10 Angle of Arrival 20
2.11 E-OTD 20
2.12 Modes for fingerprinting 24
2.13 ActiveBadge and WIPS 27
2.14 Ultrasound Infrastructure 29
3.1 Block Diagram of the System 36
3.2 System Design and Development Flowchart 37
3.3 EPE Concept 39
3.4 WCC 1st Floor layout 40
3.5 Dlink DWL-2000AP+ Wireless Router and Access point 42
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3.6 Toshiba Satellite M100 equipped with WLAN Card (Intel
PRO/Wireless 3945ABG)
44
3.7 Ekahau T101 Wi-Fi Tag 44
3.8 EPE Model Creating and Calibration Setup 48
3.9 Ekahau Manger Login Screen 48
3.10 Using the Measure tool for setting map scale and
conversion from pixels to meters
49
3.11 Calibration Phase; sample points are recorded while the
user rotates laptop at a full 360o
50
3.12 Assignments of Logical Areas 54
3.13 JBuilder workspace 55
3.14 Main window of the Program 56
3.15 A screenshot of NetStumbler Listing Available Access
Points
57
3.16 Ekahau Manager (Accuracy analysis) 58
4.1 Main Program Interface 61
4.2 Interface of Adding New Equipment 61
4.3 View the Available Equipments 62
4.4 Alert if the Equipment taken away from defined location 62
4.5 Interface of searching for specific Equipment 63
4.6 Ekahau Tracking View map 63
5.1 Measurement of the SS during non-busy Hours 65
5.2 Measurement of the SS during busy Hours 65
5.3 Floor 1 WCC, UTM with the locations of APs 66
5.4 RSS at location A 67
5.5 RSS at location B 67
5.6 RSS at location C 67
5.7 RSS at location D 68
5.8 RSS at location E 68
5.9 RSS at location F 68
5.10 RSS at location G 69
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5.11 shows the overall result of RSS, at different locations 69
5.12 Effects of number of APs on the accuracy 70
5.13 Effects of number of APs on the Accuracy 71
5.14 Effects of number of Calibration nodes on the accuracy 71
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LIST OF TABLES
NO TITLE PAGE
2.1 Overview of positioning methods 8
2.2 Overview of WLAN fingerprinting systems 25
2.3 location-based Application based on Market
segment 34
3.1 Components of Ekahau Positioning Engine 47
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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
AOA - Angle of Arrival
AP - Access Point
CID - Cell Identification
COO - Cell of Origin
EPE - Ekahau Positioning Engine
GPS - Global Positioning System
GSM - Global System
IEEE - Institution of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
LAN - Local Area Network
RSS - Received Signal Strength
SS - Signal Strength
WCC - Wireless Communication centre
WLAN - Wireless Local Area Network
Wi-Fi - Wireless Fidelity
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LIST OF APPENDIX
APPENDIX TITLE PAGE
A EKAHAU SDK TESTER VIEWR 77
B Signal Strength Measurement during Non-Busy Hours
and Non Busy Hours
92
C Measurement of the RSS at different Location 94
D Number of Access points(Accuracy analysis) 101
E Number of Calibration Nodes (Accuracy analysis) 102
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Introduction
Wireless networks are becoming more and more popular in build
environment such as in hospitals, universities, malls and so on, in build environment
prefer to set up a wireless network rather than the traditionally wired network
because the flexibility and freedom it can provided. Based on the wireless
infrastructure, a great many new and promising applications are coming into our
lives.
Now wireless local area network (WLAN) is not just a mere communications
system, it can be used to locate people and objects Locations, based on signal
strengths received from access points, this is called the WLAN Positioning System.
To implement a successful location based application, the most important is to locate
mobile devices accurately, at least within an acceptable range, to pin-point the user’s
positioning.
The problem of positioning and tracking has been tackled by many systems
over the years, such as GPS, wide-area cellular-based system, infrared-based system,
magnetic tracking system, physical contact systems and radio frequency based
systems. Locating objects and people outdoors is becoming trivial by using
technologies like Global Positioning System (GPS), GPS makes a big success in
outdoor navigation, but fails in indoor due to the indoor channel characteristics,
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accurately estimating location for indoors environment remains a difficult. There are
actually various ways for determining and tracking position indoors, but to do so
accurately remain very costly; deployment of sensors all around a building or the
usage of expensive hardware might be required. Radio frequency-based tracking in
WLAN has gained more and more attention in recent years, because it makes use of
existing WLAN infrastructure, requires no extra hardware, and provides relatively
large coverage [1].
Location tracking systems brings with it tremendous benefits, especially to
the medical field, one of its benefits are to help track critical equipment of the
hospital, keeping track of equipment is a challenge in any hospital, no matter how
large or small are they. However, hospital's equipments are often scattered
throughout the facility, forcing busy staff to waste precious time tracking down the
equipments. If the equipment can not be found, hospitals unnecessarily purchase or
rent replacements. However, in the emergence case the time lost because of the
equipment unavailability, putting patient at risk. It can be expensive and can cost
human life; in addition hospitals can loose a lot of money in medical equipment due
to thefts.
For example, in-patient bedside medical equipment consists of an infusion
pump and a physiological monitoring system that monitors most parameters such as
ECG, heart rate, blood pressure, oxygen saturation and other parameters. An infusion
pump is used to administer medicine or nutrient, often through a vein. These pumps,
mounted on an IV (intravenous) cart, are highly mobile equipment that are allocated
to General Service, thus making it difficult to locate a specific infusion pump prior to
a repair. In addition, these pumps are often misplaced or stolen due to the nature of
its use [2].
This project is proposed to design and develop a real time Equipment
Tracking and Security System for Hospital environment based on WLAN indoor
location tracking system to alleviate the problems which are mentioned above. A
simple measurement campaign will be conducted to study the properties of the
Ekahau [3] location tracking system, and then the equipment management system
which include real-time equipment tracking and security system. The equipment
3
tracking system using WLAN-based indoor location tracking system will provide the
physical location of the equipment at any time within the coverage of the hospital.
The equipment security system will provide protection of the equipment from theft.
Ekahau WLAN-based indoor location tracking system will be applied in this project
to provide real-time location estimation. Each equipment will be equipped with an
Ekahau WLAN Tag and its location will be calculated by the Ekahau engine server.
The location is predicated through WLAN signal strength finger-printing technique.
At the end of the project, a system which is capable to provide real-time equipment's
location to user will be developed. Besides that the system will be capable to give
alert to the control centre if the hospital's equipment is taken away from the
authorized area.
1.2 Problem Statement
• The most current system used is manual.
• More time is wasted in search of equipments.
• In case of emergency time is an important constraint.
• Theft of equipments will cost the hospital in replacing them.
1.3 Objective
• To design and develop a real time hospital equipment management system which
will includes equipment tracking and security system, using WLAN indoor
location tracking system.
• To study the properties of WLAN signal strength (SS) for indoor location
tracking application.
• To study the properties of WLAN-based indoor location tracking system.
4
1.4 Scope of Work
The equipment management system would be developed and examined into
an electronic version based on the Java platform. The Implementation of WLAN-
based indoor location for real time tracking will be done by utilizing Ekahau
Positioning Engine [3] (Mapping, Fingerprinting and calibration), as well as this
project will involve building Database for all equipments available in the hospital for
security and management purposes.
A test-bed would then be setup within the confines of the wireless
Communication Centre (WCC), Block P15 Faculty of Electrical Engineering, using
the existing WLAN incorporating the IEEE 802.11g standard Access Point (AP),
Tags which are attached to the hospital equipments will be use in order to emulate
the location of the equipment. A two-dimensional map covering the entire ground
floor building of WCC is covered in the system saved into the positioning engine and
scaled accordingly. The received signal strength intensity (RSSI) index of the test-
bed would be obtained from the calibration run of the positioning engine using the
propriety software on the previously stored scaled map. This commonly, known as
the finger printing technique. The location of the equipment will be calculated by
using the positioning engine software from the RSSI obtains during the calibration
process.
An interface would then be developed into the equipment management
recorder application, to extract the location of the equipment. This will be done by
obtaining the received signal strength which is emitted by the tag, and comparing it
with the recorded RSSI which obtained from the calibration process.
Equipment tracking and security system using WLAN indoor location
tracking system is does not involve any hardware development as the existing
hardware are readily available off-the shelf. It only consists of the software
development cycle in a Java. WCC has been chosen as the perfect test-bed to run
simulated test of the software as the existing access point are sufficiently installed
and EPE server is deployed within the confines of building itself.
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Equipment Tracking and Security System using WLAN indoor location tracking system
WLAN indoor location Tracking system
IEEE 802.11 b/g WLAN Infrastructure
Figure 1.1: Tree Diagram of Location –A Ware Equipment Tracking and Security System Using WLAN Indoor Location Tracking System
From the tree diagram as shown from figure 1 the lowest hierarchical level is
the physical WLAN infrastructure, which involve access points, WLAN PCMCIA
cards, laptops and Ekahau WLAN Tag. One layer above the WLAN indoor location
tracking system consist of Ekahau Position Engine 3.0 (EPE) is the only software
based real time location system currently in market. The top of the diagram is the
Equipment tracking and security system using WLAN indoor location tracking
system.
Moreover this project will include a proper study of the properties of the
WLAN-based indoor location tracking system; this will include examining of the
WLAN signal strength (SS), at different time and locations, in order to prove the
stability and reliability of location tracking using WLAN SS finger-printing
technique. The measurement of SS will be obtained using NetworkStumbler
software. Besides that, the effects of number of access points, and calibration nodes
on the location estimation accuracy will be investigated by using Ekahau manager
accuracy analysis.
6
1.5 Thesis Organization
The first chapter the provides readers, glimpse at the basic aspects of the
research undertaken such as problem statement objectives, and scope of work,.
The second chapter gives an overview of available positioning techniques.
And among the topics that are discussed, Classification of Positioning system, Global
Positioning System; Cell of Origin /Cell ID Positioning, system, and finally Indoor
Positioning System.
The third chapter, reports on the methods employed to develop the
positioning system and the methodology, in which the methods employed and the
soft wares needed for this project are explained.
The fourth chapter presents the result and discussion of implementation of
equipment tracking and security system based on WLAN indoor location tracking.
The topics discussed are positioning system program requirement, program
functionality and finally program implementation.
The fifth chapter, studies the properties of WLAN based-Indoor location
tracking system in terms of accuracy based on the signal strength of the wireless
network.
In the sixth chapter, are the conclusion and discussion of future works that
can be carried out is presented.