{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,6,18]],"date-time":"2026-06-18T08:17:21Z","timestamp":1781770641942,"version":"3.54.5"},"reference-count":27,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"3","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2021,12,2]],"date-time":"2021-12-02T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1638403200000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"Center for Integrated Intelligent Mobility Systems (CIIMS), University of North Texas (UNT), Denton, Texas","award":["N\/A"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["N\/A"]}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Network"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Bluetooth low energy (BLE)-based location service technology has become one of the fastest growing applications for Bluetooth. Received signal strength (RSS) is often used in localization techniques for ranging or location fingerprinting. However, RSS-based localization solutions have poor performance in multipath environments. In this paper, we present a measurement system designed using multiple ESP32 BLE modules and the Bluetooth mesh networking technology, which is capable of exploiting the space, time, and frequency diversities in measurements. To enable channel-aware multi-device RSS measurements, we also designed a communication protocol to associate channel ID information to advertising messages. Based on channel measurement and analysis, we demonstrate that with a six-receiver configuration and space-time-frequency diversity combining, we can significantly reduce the residual linear regression fitting errors in path loss models. Such a reduction leads to more accurately correlating RSS measurements to the distance between the transmitter and receiver devices and thus to achieving improved performance with the RSS-based localization techniques. More importantly, the reduction in the fitting errors is achieved without differentiating the three advertising channels, making it possible to conveniently implement the proposed six-receiver configuration using commercially available BLE devices and the standard Bluetooth mesh networking protocol stack.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/network1030018","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2021,12,2]],"date-time":"2021-12-02T02:56:14Z","timestamp":1638413774000},"page":"315-334","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":4,"title":["Measurement and Analysis of RSS Using Bluetooth Mesh Network for Localization Applications"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"1","author":[{"given":"Yuan","family":"Cao","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Electrical Engineering, University of North Texas, 1155 Union Circle #310470, Denton, TX 76203, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Harsha","family":"Kandula","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Electrical Engineering, University of North Texas, 1155 Union Circle #310470, Denton, TX 76203, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-7954-243X","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Xinrong","family":"Li","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Electrical Engineering, University of North Texas, 1155 Union Circle #310470, Denton, TX 76203, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2021,12,2]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"244","DOI":"10.1109\/JIOT.2015.2506258","article-title":"An indoor location-aware system for an IoT-based smart museum","volume":"3","author":"Alletto","year":"2016","journal-title":"IEEE Internet Things J."},{"key":"ref_2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"811","DOI":"10.1109\/JIOT.2017.2788449","article-title":"BLE beacons for Internet of Things applications: Survey, challenges, and opportunities","volume":"5","author":"Jeon","year":"2018","journal-title":"IEEE Internet Things J."},{"key":"ref_3","unstructured":"Bluetooth SIG (2020, November 01). Enhancing Bluetooth Location Services with Direction Finding. Bluetooth Resources, Available online: https:\/\/www.bluetooth.com."},{"key":"ref_4","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"3483","DOI":"10.1109\/JSYST.2020.2969088","article-title":"BLE beacons for indoor positioning at an interactive IoT-Based smart museum","volume":"14","author":"Spachos","year":"2020","journal-title":"IEEE Syst. J."},{"key":"ref_5","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"2418","DOI":"10.1109\/JSAC.2015.2430281","article-title":"Location fingerprinting with Bluetooth Low Energy beacons","volume":"33","author":"Faragher","year":"2015","journal-title":"IEEE J. Sel. Areas Commun."},{"key":"ref_6","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"3626","DOI":"10.1109\/TWC.2006.256985","article-title":"RSS-based location estimation with unknown pathloss model","volume":"5","author":"Li","year":"2006","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Wirel. Commun."},{"key":"ref_7","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"3807","DOI":"10.1109\/TVT.2007.904535","article-title":"Collaborative localization with received signal strength in wireless sensor networks","volume":"56","author":"Li","year":"2007","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Veh. Technol."},{"key":"ref_8","unstructured":"Rappaport, T.S. (2002). Wireless Communications: Principles and Practice, Prentice Hall PTR. [2nd ed.]."},{"key":"ref_9","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Pahlavan, K., Li, X., Ylianttila, M., Chana, R., and Latva-aho, M. (2000). An overview of wireless indoor geolocation techniques and systems. IFIP International Conference on Mobile and Wireless Communication Networks, Springer.","DOI":"10.1007\/3-540-45494-2_1"},{"key":"ref_10","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"112","DOI":"10.1109\/35.983917","article-title":"Indoor geolocation science and technology","volume":"40","author":"Pahlavan","year":"2002","journal-title":"IEEE Commun. Mag."},{"key":"ref_11","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Al Nuaimi, K., and Kamel, H. (2011, January 25\u201327). A survey of indoor positioning systems and algorithms. Proceedings of the International Conference on Innovations in Information Technology, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.","DOI":"10.1109\/INNOVATIONS.2011.5893813"},{"key":"ref_12","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"150","DOI":"10.1109\/MCOM.2015.7060497","article-title":"WiFi-based indoor positioning","volume":"53","author":"Yang","year":"2015","journal-title":"IEEE Commun. Mag."},{"key":"ref_13","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1372","DOI":"10.1049\/iet-com.2019.1059","article-title":"Survey on WiFi-based indoor positioning techniques","volume":"14","author":"Liu","year":"2020","journal-title":"IET Commun."},{"key":"ref_14","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Nikoukar, A., Abboud, M., Samadi, B., G\u00fcne\u015f, M., and Dezfouli, B. (2018, January 20\u201322). Empirical analysis and modeling of Bluetooth low-energy (BLE) advertisement channels. Proceedings of the 2018 17th Annual Mediterranean Ad Hoc Networking Workshop (Med-Hoc-Net), Capri, Italy.","DOI":"10.23919\/MedHocNet.2018.8407089"},{"key":"ref_15","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Paterna, V.C., Auge, A.C., Aspas, J.P., and Bullones, M.A.P. (2017). A Bluetooth Low Energy indoor positioning system with channel diversity, weighted trilateration and Kalman filtering. Sensors, 17.","DOI":"10.3390\/s17122927"},{"key":"ref_16","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Huang, B., Liu, J., Sun, W., and Yang, F. (2019). A robust indoor positioning method based on Bluetooth Low Energy with separate channel information. Sensors, 19.","DOI":"10.3390\/s19163487"},{"key":"ref_17","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"10","DOI":"10.1109\/WCL.2013.100913.130631","article-title":"RSS-based ranging by multichannel RSS averaging","volume":"3","author":"Zanella","year":"2014","journal-title":"IEEE Wirel. Commun. Lett."},{"key":"ref_18","unstructured":"Akl, R., Tummala, D., and Li, X. (2006, January 3\u20135). Indoor propagation modeling at 2.4 GHz for IEEE 802.11 networks . Proceedings of the International Multi-Conference on Wireless and Optical Communications, Banff, AB, Canada."},{"key":"ref_19","unstructured":"Pahlavan, K., and Levesque, A.H. (1995). Wireless Information Networks, John Wiley & Sons."},{"key":"ref_20","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"224","DOI":"10.1109\/TWC.2003.819035","article-title":"Super-resolution TOA estimation with diversity for indoor geolocation","volume":"3","author":"Li","year":"2004","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Wirel. Commun."},{"key":"ref_21","unstructured":"Torvmark, K. (2014). Three flavors of Bluetooth: Which one to choose?. Texas Instruments White Paper, Texas Instruments."},{"key":"ref_22","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"53784","DOI":"10.1109\/ACCESS.2020.2980795","article-title":"Bluetooth Mesh Analysis, Issues, and Challenges","volume":"8","author":"Bardaji","year":"2020","journal-title":"IEEE Access"},{"key":"ref_23","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Mackey, A., and Spachos, P. (2017, January 14\u201316). Performance evaluation of beacons for indoor localization in smart buildings. Proceedings of the IEEE Global Conference on Signal and Information Processing (GlobalSIP), Montreal, QC, Canada.","DOI":"10.1109\/GlobalSIP.2017.8309075"},{"key":"ref_24","unstructured":"(2020, November 01). Espressif, ESP32-DevKitC v4 Getting Started Guide. ESP-IDF Programming Guide, Available online: https:\/\/docs.espressif.com\/projects\/esp-idf\/en\/latest\/esp32\/hw-reference\/esp32\/get-started-devkitc.html."},{"key":"ref_25","unstructured":"(2020, November 01). Espressif, ESP-BLE-MESH Architecture. ESP-IDF Programming Guide, Available online: https:\/\/docs.espressif.com\/projects\/esp-idf\/en\/latest\/esp32\/."},{"key":"ref_26","unstructured":"Bluetooth SIG (2020, November 01). Mesh Profile, Revision v1.0.1, Bluetooth Specification 2019. Available online: https:\/\/www.bluetooth.com\/specifications\/specs\/mesh-profile-1-0-1\/."},{"key":"ref_27","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"233","DOI":"10.1504\/IJSNET.2010.036198","article-title":"Collaborative multi-sensor tracking in mobile wireless sensor networks","volume":"8","author":"Li","year":"2010","journal-title":"Int. J. Sens. Netw."}],"container-title":["Network"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/2673-8732\/1\/3\/18\/pdf","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2025,10,11]],"date-time":"2025-10-11T07:38:43Z","timestamp":1760168323000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/2673-8732\/1\/3\/18"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2021,12,2]]},"references-count":27,"journal-issue":{"issue":"3","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2021,12]]}},"alternative-id":["network1030018"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/network1030018","relation":{},"ISSN":["2673-8732"],"issn-type":[{"value":"2673-8732","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2021,12,2]]}}}