Devel Digest, Vol 11, Issue 25

[Gordon Schumacher]

"John Marshall" <jmarshall at ncsoft.com> wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> Sorry if this has been asked already.  Will it be possible to tell
> distance and/or direction from one laptop to another?  If so, any idea
> how accurate such figures might be?  Also, if it can be achieved from a
> single laptop or if it would likely require data from multiple laptops
> for the calculations to work?

I imagine that this would at best be very, very difficult if all of them 
were in motion.  If there were one - or more ideally two - known-fixed 
points, this becomes much, much simpler simply using field strengths. 
Otherwise I don't think that there's a way to tell more than a rough 
estimate of distance.

The more non-mobile points (think APs!) there are, the easier it 
becomes.  If there's also a way to calibrate the relative power levels 
of those fixed points (say, by walking to approximately ten feet from 
each one and pushing a button) it becomes simply a matter of math...