Using DNS to establish a localization service

Abstract

Due to its general usage in modern buildings, WiFi has been studied as a promising good low-cost solution to build localization services, but many other approaches are possible. Both industry and academy are putting considerable efforts in studying affordable and accurate alternatives, and no de facto standard exists yet. While technological diversity can be good in terms of flexibility, allowing distinct solutions to be used in distinct contexts according to accuracy needs or cost constraints, it is also a big obstacle to the goal of building a global positioning system. So one important requirement that has yet to be addressed is this diversity, allowing for multiple localization systems to be easily plugged into a standard and global localization service. In this paper, a solution to build a global localization service able to integrate various heterogeneous localization systems is presented and discussed. A prototype implementation built on top of DNS is proposed. The DNS subtree structure, as well as the Resource Records able to store the localization information, are presented and justified. The results obtained from prototype testing have proven that DNS is a valid and good candidate to support a global Localization Service.