arXiv subjects

Moustafa Youssef

Publications and source records attributed to Moustafa Youssef.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Quantum Optimization for Access Point Selection Under Budget Constraint

Optimal Access Point (AP) selection is crucial for accurate indoor localization, yet it is constrained by budget, creating a trade-off between localization accuracy and deployment cost. Classical approaches to AP selection are often computationally expensive, hindering their application in large-scale 3D indoor environments. In this paper, we introduce a quantum APs selection algorithm under a budget constraint. The proposed algorithm leverages quantum annealing to identify the most effective subset of APs allowed within a given budget. We formulate the APs selection problem as a quadratic unconstrained binary optimization (QUBO) problem, making it suitable for quantum annealing solvers. The proposed technique can drastically reduce infrastructure requirements with a negligible impact on performance. We implement the proposed quantum algorithm and deploy it in a realistic 3D testbed. Our results show that the proposed approach can reduce the number of required APs by 96.1% while maintaining a comparable 3D localization accuracy. Furthermore, the proposed quantum approach outperforms classical AP selection algorithms in both accuracy and computational speed. Specifically, our technique achieves a time of 0.20 seconds, representing a speedup of 61 times over its classical counterpart, while reducing the mean localization error by 10% compared to the classical counterpart. For floor localization, the quantum approach achieves 73% floor accuracy, outperforming both the classical AP selection (58.6%) and even using the complete set of APs (70.4%). This highlights the promise of the proposed quantum APs selection algorithm for large-scale 3D localization.

cs.ET↗

arXiv2025

LocaGen: Low-Overhead Indoor Localization Through Spatial Augmentation

Indoor localization systems commonly rely on fingerprinting, which requires extensive survey efforts to obtain location-tagged signal data, limiting their real-world deployability. Recent approaches that attempt to reduce this overhead either suffer from low representation ability, mode collapse issues, or require the effort of collecting data at all target locations. We present LocaGen, a novel spatial augmentation framework that significantly reduces fingerprinting overhead by generating high-quality synthetic data at completely unseen locations. LocaGen leverages a conditional diffusion model guided by a novel spatially aware optimization strategy to synthesize realistic fingerprints at unseen locations using only a subset of seen locations. To further improve our diffusion model performance, LocaGen augments seen location data based on domain-specific heuristics and strategically selects the seen and unseen locations using a novel density-based approach that ensures robust coverage. Our extensive evaluation on a real-world WiFi fingerprinting dataset shows that LocaGen maintains the same localization accuracy even with 30% of the locations unseen and achieves up to 28% improvement in accuracy over state-of-the-art augmentation methods.

cs.LG↗

arXiv2025

SimDeep: Federated 3D Indoor Localization via Similarity-Aware Aggregation

Indoor localization plays a pivotal role in supporting a wide array of location-based services, including navigation, security, and context-aware computing within intricate indoor environments. Despite considerable advancements, deploying indoor localization systems in real-world scenarios remains challenging, largely because of non-independent and identically distributed (non-IID) data and device heterogeneity. In response, we propose SimDeep, a novel Federated Learning (FL) framework explicitly crafted to overcome these obstacles and effectively manage device heterogeneity. SimDeep incorporates a Similarity Aggregation Strategy, which aggregates client model updates based on data similarity, significantly alleviating the issues posed by non-IID data. Our experimental evaluations indicate that SimDeep achieves an impressive accuracy of 92.89%, surpassing traditional federated and centralized techniques, thus underscoring its viability for real-world deployment.

cs.LG↗

arXiv2025

DarkFarseer: Robust Spatio-temporal Kriging under Graph Sparsity and Noise

With the rapid growth of the Internet of Things and Cyber-Physical Systems, widespread sensor deployment has become essential. However, the high costs of building sensor networks limit their scale and coverage, making fine-grained deployment challenging. Inductive Spatio-Temporal Kriging (ISK) addresses this issue by introducing virtual sensors. Based on graph neural networks (GNNs) extracting the relationships between physical and virtual sensors, ISK can infer the measurements of virtual sensors from physical sensors. However, current ISK methods rely on conventional message-passing mechanisms and network architectures, without effectively extracting spatio-temporal features of physical sensors and focusing on representing virtual sensors. Additionally, existing graph construction methods face issues of sparse and noisy connections, destroying ISK performance. To address these issues, we propose DarkFarseer, a novel ISK framework with three key components. First, we propose the Neighbor Hidden Style Enhancement module with a style transfer strategy to enhance the representation of virtual nodes in a temporal-then-spatial manner to better extract the spatial relationships between physical and virtual nodes. Second, we propose Virtual-Component Contrastive Learning, which aims to enrich the node representation by establishing the association between the patterns of virtual nodes and the regional patterns within graph components. Lastly, we design a Similarity-Based Graph Denoising Strategy, which reduces the connectivity strength of noisy connections around virtual nodes and their neighbors based on their temporal information and regional spatial patterns. Extensive experiments demonstrate that DarkFarseer significantly outperforms existing ISK methods.

cs.LG↗

arXiv2024

AirTags for Human Localization, Not Just Objects

Indoor localization has become increasingly important due to its wide-ranging applications in indoor navigation, emergency services, the Internet of Things (IoT), and accessibility for individuals with special needs. Traditional localization systems often require extensive calibration to achieve high accuracy. We introduce UbiLoc, an innovative, calibration-free indoor localization system that leverages Apple AirTags in a novel way to localize users instead of tracking objects. By utilizing the ubiquitous presence of AirTags and their Ultra-Wideband (UWB) technology, UbiLoc achieves centimeter-level accuracy, surpassing traditional WiFi and Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) systems. UbiLoc addresses key challenges, including ranging errors caused by multipath and noise, through a novel AirTag selection technique. The system operates without the need for manual calibration, ensuring robustness and self-maintenance. Deployed on various Apple devices and tested in real-world environments, UbiLoc achieved median localization errors as low as 26 cm in a campus building and 31.5 cm in an apartment setting. These results demonstrate that UbiLoc is the first system to offer reliable, cm-level accuracy using widely available technology without requiring calibration, making it a promising solution for next-generation indoor localization systems.

cs.NI↗

arXiv2024

An Efficient Quantum Binary-Neuron Algorithm for Accurate Multi-Story Floor Localization

Accurate floor localization in a multi-story environment is an important but challenging task. Among the current floor localization techniques, fingerprinting is the mainstream technology due to its accuracy in noisy environments. To achieve accurate floor localization in a building with many floors, we have to collect sufficient data on each floor, which needs significant storage and running time; preventing fingerprinting techniques from scaling to support large multi-story buildings, especially on a worldwide scale. In this paper, we propose a quantum algorithm for accurate multi-story localization. The proposed algorithm leverages quantum computing concepts to provide an exponential enhancement in both space and running time compared to the classical counterparts. In addition, it builds on an efficient binary-neuron implementation that can be implemented using fewer qubits compared to the typical non-binary neurons, allowing for easier deployment with near-term quantum devices. We implement the proposed algorithm on a real IBM quantum machine and evaluate it on three real indoor testbeds. Results confirm the exponential saving in both time and space for the proposed quantum algorithm, while keeping the same localization accuracy compared to the traditional classical techniques, and using half the number of qubits required for other quantum localization algorithms.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2024

TimeSense: Multi-Person Device-free Indoor Localization via RTT

Locating the persons moving through an environment without the necessity of them being equipped with special devices has become vital for many applications including security, IoT, healthcare, etc. Existing device-free indoor localization systems commonly rely on the utilization of Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) and WiFi Channel State Information (CSI) techniques. However, the accuracy of RSSI is adversely affected by environmental factors like multi-path interference and fading. Additionally, the lack of standardization in CSI necessitates the use of specialized hardware and software. In this paper, we present TimeSense, a deep learning-based multi-person device-free indoor localization system that addresses these challenges. TimeSense leverages Time of Flight information acquired by the fine-time measurement protocol of IEEE 802.11-2016 standard. Specifically, the measured round trip time between the transmitter and receiver is influenced by the dynamic changes in the environment induced by human presence. TimeSense effectively detects this anomalous behavior using a stacked denoising auto-encoder model, thereby estimating the user's location. The system incorporates a probabilistic approach on top of the deep learning model to ensure seamless tracking of the users. The evaluation of TimeSene in two realistic environments demonstrates its efficacy, achieving a median localization accuracy of 1.57 and 2.65 meters. This surpasses the performance of state-of-the-art techniques by 49% and 103% in the two testbeds.

eess.SP↗

arXiv2024

Handling Device Heterogeneity for Deep Learning-based Localization

Deep learning-based fingerprinting is one of the current promising technologies for outdoor localization in cellular networks. However, deploying such localization systems for heterogeneous phones affects their accuracy as the cellular received signal strength (RSS) readings vary for different types of phones. In this paper, we introduce a number of techniques for addressing the phones heterogeneity problem in the deep-learning based localization systems. The basic idea is either to approximate a function that maps the cellular RSS measurements between different devices or to transfer the knowledge across them. Evaluation of the proposed techniques using different Android phones on four independent testbeds shows that our techniques can improve the localization accuracy by more than 220% for the four testbeds as compared to the state-of-the-art systems. This highlights the promise of the proposed device heterogeneity handling techniques for enabling a wide deployment of deep learning-based localization systems over different devices.

cs.CY↗

arXiv2024

DeepCell: A Ubiquitous Accurate Provider-side Cellular-based Localization

Although outdoor localization is already available to the general public and businesses through the wide spread use of the GPS, it is not supported by low-end phones, requires a direct line of sight to satellites and can drain phone battery quickly. The current fingerprinting solutions can provide high-accuracy localization but are based on the client side. This limits their ubiquitous deployment and accuracy. In this paper, we introduce DeepCell: a provider-side fingerprinting localization system that can provide high accuracy localization for any cell phone. To build its fingerprint, DeepCell leverages the unlabeled cellular measurements recorded by the cellular provider while opportunistically synchronizing with selected client devices to get location labels. The fingerprint is then used to train a deep neural network model that is harnessed for localization. To achieve this goal, DeepCell need to address a number of challenges including using unlabeled data from the provider side, handling noise and sparsity, scaling the data to large areas, and finally providing enough data that is required for training deep models without overhead. Evaluation of DeepCell in a typical realistic environment shows that it can achieve a consistent median accuracy of 29m. This accuracy outperforms the state-of-the-art client-based cellular-based systems by more than 75.4%. In addition, the same accuracy is extended to low-end phones.

cs.CY↗

arXiv2024

An Efficient Quantum Euclidean Similarity Algorithm for Worldwide Localization

Fingerprinting techniques are widely used for localization because of their accuracy, especially in the presence of wireless channel noise. However, the fingerprinting techniques require significant storage and running time, which is a concern when implementing such systems on a global worldwide scale. In this paper, we propose an efficient quantum Euclidean similarity algorithm for wireless localization systems. The proposed quantum algorithm offers exponentially improved complexity compared to its classical counterpart and even the state-of-the-art quantum localization systems, in terms of both storage space and running time. The basic idea is to entangle the test received signal strength (RSS) vector with the fingerprint vectors at different locations and perform the similarity calculation in parallel to all fingerprint locations. We give the details of how to construct the quantum fingerprint, how to encode the RSS measurements in quantum particles, and finally; present the quantum algorithm for calculating the Euclidean similarity between the online RSS measurements and the fingerprint ones. Implementation and evaluation of our algorithm in a real testbed using a real IBM quantum machine as well as a simulation for a larger testbed confirm its ability to correctly obtain the estimated location with an exponential enhancement in both time and space compared to the traditional classical fingerprinting techniques and the state-of-the-art quantum localization techniques.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2024

A Deployable Quantum Access Points Selection Algorithm for Large-Scale Localization

Effective access points (APs) selection is a crucial step in localization systems. It directly affects both localization accuracy and computational efficiency. Classical APs selection algorithms are usually computationally expensive, hindering the deployment of localization systems in a large worldwide scale. In this paper, we introduce a quantum APs selection algorithm for large-scale localization systems. The proposed algorithm leverages quantum annealing to eliminate redundant and noisy APs. We explain how to formulate the APs selection problem as a quadratic unconstrained binary optimization (QUBO) problem, suitable for quantum annealing, and how to select the minimum number of APs that maintain the same overall localization system accuracy as the complete APs set. Based on this, we further propose a logarithmic-complexity algorithm to select the optimal number of APs. We implement our quantum algorithm on a real D-Wave Systems quantum machine and assess its performance in a real test environment for a floor localization problem. Our findings reveal that by selecting fewer than 14% of the available APs in the environment, our quantum algorithm achieves the same floor localization accuracy as utilizing the entire set of APs and a superior accuracy over utilizing the reduced dataset by classical APs selection counterparts. Moreover, the proposed quantum algorithm achieves more than an order of magnitude speedup over the corresponding classical APs selection algorithms, emphasizing the efficiency of the proposed quantum algorithm for large-scale localization systems.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2024

Towards Mobility Data Science (Vision Paper)

Mobility data captures the locations of moving objects such as humans, animals, and cars. With the availability of GPS-equipped mobile devices and other inexpensive location-tracking technologies, mobility data is collected ubiquitously. In recent years, the use of mobility data has demonstrated significant impact in various domains including traffic management, urban planning, and health sciences. In this paper, we present the emerging domain of mobility data science. Towards a unified approach to mobility data science, we envision a pipeline having the following components: mobility data collection, cleaning, analysis, management, and privacy. For each of these components, we explain how mobility data science differs from general data science, we survey the current state of the art and describe open challenges for the research community in the coming years.

cs.OH↗

arXiv2023

RBPGAN: Recurrent Back-Projection GAN for Video Super Resolution

Recently, video super resolution (VSR) has become a very impactful task in the area of Computer Vision due to its various applications. In this paper, we propose Recurrent Back-Projection Generative Adversarial Network (RBPGAN) for VSR in an attempt to generate temporally coherent solutions while preserving spatial details. RBPGAN integrates two state-of-the-art models to get the best in both worlds without compromising the accuracy of produced video. The generator of the model is inspired by RBPN system, while the discriminator is inspired by TecoGAN. We also utilize Ping-Pong loss to increase temporal consistency over time. Our contribution together results in a model that outperforms earlier work in terms of temporally consistent details, as we will demonstrate qualitatively and quantitatively using different datasets.

cs.CV↗

arXiv2023

A Quantum Fingerprinting Algorithm for Next Generation Cellular Positioning

The recent release of the third generation partnership project, Release 17, calls for sub-meter cellular positioning accuracy with reduced latency in calculation. To provide such high accuracy on a worldwide scale, leveraging the received signal strength (RSS) for positioning promises ubiquitous availability in the current and future equipment. RSS Fingerprint-based techniques have shown a great potential for providing high accuracy in both indoor and outdoor environments. However, fingerprint-based positioning faces the challenge of providing a fast matching algorithm that can scale worldwide. In this paper, we propose a cosine similarity-based quantum algorithm for enabling fingerprint-based high accuracy and worldwide positioning that can be integrated with the next generation of 5G and 6G networks and beyond. By entangling the test RSS vector with the fingerprint RSS vectors, the proposed quantum algorithm has a complexity that is exponentially better than its classical version as well as the state-of-the-art quantum fingerprint positioning systems, both in the storage space and the running time. We implement the proposed quantum algorithm and evaluate it in a cellular testbed on a real IBM quantum machine. Results show the exponential saving in both time and space for the proposed quantum algorithm while keeping the same positioning accuracy compared to the traditional classical fingerprinting techniques and the state-of-the-art quantum algorithms.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2023

Privacy-Preserving by Design: Indoor Positioning System Using Wi-Fi Passive TDOA

Indoor localization systems have become increasingly important in a wide range of applications, including industry, security, logistics, and emergency services. However, the growing demand for accurate localization has heightened concerns over privacy, as many localization systems rely on active signals that can be misused by an adversary to track users' movements or manipulate their measurements. This paper presents PassiFi, a novel passive Wi-Fi time-based indoor localization system that effectively balances accuracy and privacy. PassiFi uses a passive WiFi Time Difference of Arrival (TDoA) approach that ensures users' privacy and safeguards the integrity of their measurement data while still achieving high accuracy. The system adopts a fingerprinting approach to address multi-path and non-line-of-sight problems and utilizes deep neural networks to learn the complex relationship between TDoA and location. Evaluation in a real-world testbed demonstrates PassiFi's exceptional performance, surpassing traditional multilateration by 128%, achieving sub-meter accuracy on par with state-of-the-art active measurement systems, all while preserving privacy.

cs.AI↗

arXiv2022

Spectral-Loc: Indoor Localization using Light Spectral Information

For indoor settings, we investigate the impact of location on the spectral distribution of the received light, i.e., the intensity of light for different wavelengths. Our investigations confirm that even under the same light source, different locations exhibit slightly different spectral distribution due to reflections from their localised environment containing different materials or colours. By exploiting this observation, we propose Spectral-Loc, a novel indoor localization system that uses light spectral information to identify the location of the device. With spectral sensors finding their way in latest products and applications, such as white balancing in smartphone photography, Spectral-Loc can be readily deployed without requiring any additional hardware or infrastructure. We prototype Spectral-Loc using a commercial-off-the-shelf light spectral sensor, AS7265x, which can measure light intensity over 18 different wavelength sub-bands. We benchmark the localisation accuracy of Spectral-Loc against the conventional light intensity sensors that provide only a single intensity value. Our evaluations over two different indoor spaces, a meeting room and a large office space, demonstrate that use of light spectral information significantly reduces the localization error for the different percentiles.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2022

Device-independent Quantum Fingerprinting for Large Scale Localization

Although RF fingerprinting is one of the most commonly used techniques for localization, deploying it in a ubiquitous manner requires addressing the challenge of supporting a large number of heterogeneous devices and their variations. We present QHFP, a device-independent quantum fingerprint matching algorithm that addresses two of the issues for realizing worldwide ubiquitous large-scale location tracking systems: storage space and running time as well as devices heterogeneity. In particular, we present a quantum algorithm with a complexity that is exponentially better than the classical techniques, both in space and running time. QHFP also has provisions for handling the inherent localization error due to building the large-scale fingerprint using heterogeneous devices. We give the details of the entire system starting from extracting device-independent features from the raw RSS, mapping the classical feature vectors to their quantum counterparts, and showing a quantum cosine similarity algorithm for fingerprint matching. We have implemented our quantum algorithm and deployed it in a real testbed using the IBM Quantum machine simulator. Results confirm the ability of QHFP to obtain the correct estimated location with an exponential improvement in space and running time compared to the traditional classical counterparts. In addition, the proposed device-independent features lead to more than 20% better accuracy in median error. This highlights the promise of our algorithm for future ubiquitous large-scale worldwide device-independent fingerprinting localization systems.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2021

The Effect of Ground Truth Accuracy on the Evaluation of Localization Systems

The ability to accurately evaluate the performance of location determination systems is crucial for many applications. Typically, the performance of such systems is obtained by comparing ground truth locations with estimated locations. However, these ground truth locations are usually obtained by clicking on a map or using other worldwide available technologies like GPS. This introduces ground truth errors that are due to the marking process, map distortions, or inherent GPS inaccuracy. In this paper, we present a theoretical framework for analyzing the effect of ground truth errors on the evaluation of localization systems. Based on that, we design two algorithms for computing the real algorithmic error from the validation error and marking/map ground truth errors, respectively. We further establish bounds on different performance metrics. Validation of our theoretical assumptions and analysis using real data collected in a typical environment shows the ability of our theoretical framework to correct the estimated error of a localization algorithm in the presence of ground truth errors. Specifically, our marking error algorithm matches the real error CDF within 4%, and our map error algorithm provides a more accurate estimate of the median/tail error by 150%/72% when the map is shifted by 6m.

eess.SP↗