Indoor localization in a hospital environment using Random Forest classifiers

This paper proposes a new indoor localization system, based on RFID technology and a hierarchical structure of classifiers. This system has been specifically designed to work in unfriendly scenarios, where transmissions could be disturbed by other electronic devices or shielded walls. The infrastructure has been deployed and evaluated in the emergency unit of a large Italian hospital (48 rooms covering about 4000 m2) to detect the room where lost or forgotten patients lie. Extensive experiments show the potential of such technology for indoor localization applications in terms of accuracy, precision, complexity, robustness and scalability. In 98% of cases the system localizes the correct room (83%) or one of its adjacency (15%).