Wireless position estimation apparatus and method

A wireless position estimation apparatus comprising:

• a wireless communications unit receiving radio signals including positional information related to a plurality of APs from the plurality of APs including a plurality of antennas;
• a radio signal processing unit combining radio signals received from the plurality of antennas with each other or selecting one of the radio signals, depending on whether or not channel gains of the respective antennas are changed, for a respective AP;
• a distance calculating unit measuring RSSI values of the radio signals combined with each other or selected by the radio signal processing unit for a respective AP and calculating distance values to the APs using the measured RSSI values;
• an atmospheric pressure sensor measuring atmospheric pressure to generate atmospheric pressure information;
• and
• a position estimating unit estimating a three-dimensional position of a terminal using the distance values calculated for respective APs, the atmospheric pressure information, and the positional information,
• wherein the radio signal processing unit combines the radio signals received from the plurality of antennas with each other using an MRC method when channel gains of the plurality of antennas of the APs are changed within a preset time and selects a radio signal having a highest signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) among the radio signals received from the plurality of antennas using an antenna selection method when the channel gains of the plurality of antennas of the APs are not changed within the preset time.

A wireless position estimation method comprising:

• receiving radio signals including positional information related to a plurality of APs from the plurality of APs including a plurality of antennas;
• combining radio signals received from the plurality of antennas with each other or selecting one of the radio signals, depending on whether or not channel gains of the respective antennas are changed, for a respective AP;
• measuring RSSI values of the radio signals combined with each other or selected, for a respective AP;
• calculating distance values to the APs using the measured RSSI values;
• and
• estimating a position of a terminal using the distance values calculated for respective APs and the positional information.