jewfish85 Posted April 14, 2013 Share Posted April 14, 2013 Hey All, Just curious, has anyone every tried using three of the mark IVs (or whatever combo of 3) to triangulate an AP? I worked on a project a couple years ago with a little robot that was controlled via wifi, and in the design phase the idea on how to tell the position of the robot was to triangulate it using four routers positioned around the room and to calculate it based on the timing of the signal received at each AP. But it became clear that it would be extremely challenging to calculate it within any degree due to difficulty in syncronizing all four APs timers and precise placement of them (not withholding a laundry list of other technicallities due in part to the distance of each AP to one another). But if the APs were placed in a single enclosure and then the antennas were placed X distance apart from each other, would it be possible to sync them up to be able to triangulate another AP signal? I've seen similar posts in the car computing forums where people were getting together to use police scanners to triangulate police cars and pinpoint them in a GPS mapping program. Never returned to see how far they got with it though... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barry99705 Posted April 14, 2013 Share Posted April 14, 2013 Hey All, Just curious, has anyone every tried using three of the mark IVs (or whatever combo of 3) to triangulate an AP? I worked on a project a couple years ago with a little robot that was controlled via wifi, and in the design phase the idea on how to tell the position of the robot was to triangulate it using four routers positioned around the room and to calculate it based on the timing of the signal received at each AP. But it became clear that it would be extremely challenging to calculate it within any degree due to difficulty in syncronizing all four APs timers and precise placement of them (not withholding a laundry list of other technicallities due in part to the distance of each AP to one another). But if the APs were placed in a single enclosure and then the antennas were placed X distance apart from each other, would it be possible to sync them up to be able to triangulate another AP signal? I've seen similar posts in the car computing forums where people were getting together to use police scanners to triangulate police cars and pinpoint them in a GPS mapping program. Never returned to see how far they got with it though... You'll get a really rough estimate, and I mean really rough. The more access points you place up the better the resolution you can get though. There are commercial versions of what you're talking about. Not sure how they do it though. As far as I know the police scanner thing never panned out, I read that one too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jewfish85 Posted April 15, 2013 Author Share Posted April 15, 2013 I haven't had a chance to look into it yet to satisfy my curiosity but I figure you can do it somehow using a microcontroller and linking it to all the APs UARTs or something. Just thought it would be cool to have a 'radar' screen of hotspots. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WallE Posted April 15, 2013 Share Posted April 15, 2013 I know it's a little bit out of topic but out of curiosity, is it possible to do a phone triangulation and what the necessary equipement? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jewfish85 Posted April 15, 2013 Author Share Posted April 15, 2013 It is my understanding that you can triangulate any signal as long as you have at least 3 radios to pick up on it and you have to sync up each of the triangulating radios timer chips with each other. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WallE Posted April 15, 2013 Share Posted April 15, 2013 Do you know article or anything I could read about how to perform a mobile phone tracking triangulation? I looked a lot on the internet but they are only talking about doing it with the mobile company infrastructure. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barry99705 Posted April 15, 2013 Share Posted April 15, 2013 Do you know article or anything I could read about how to perform a mobile phone tracking triangulation? I looked a lot on the internet but they are only talking about doing it with the mobile company infrastructure. That's pretty much the only way you're going to do it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jewfish85 Posted April 16, 2013 Author Share Posted April 16, 2013 (edited) I had some time earlier and did some research and learned a few things, but I had one idea on how triangulate a wifi. Any way that you could use three usb radios and karma and just calculate it based on the microtime of the computer in which the signal was received? The goal is not a missile guidance system so the resolution doesn't have to be great, just enough to give the pineappler a fair gauge of where the ap or client he/she is in relation to the pineapple. I have this image stuck in my head of a radar screen with little pineapples to pin the locations of APs... Edited April 16, 2013 by jewfish85 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barry99705 Posted April 16, 2013 Share Posted April 16, 2013 http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/solutions/Enterprise/Mobility/wifich2.html http://www.ekahau.com/products/real-time-location-system/overview/how-ekahau-rtls-works.html http://www.navizon.com/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TomCat Posted July 5, 2013 Share Posted July 5, 2013 With a yagi and MkIV on batteries you could find an AP with a single pineapple... http://www.arrl.org/direction-finding Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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