2020 International Russian Automation Conference (RusAutoCon)

The Use of Butterworth Filter to Compensate for

Noise in Signals from Bluetooth Low Energy
Beacons in Autonomous Navigation Systems
A. V. Astafiev A. L. Zhiznyakov A. A. Demidov
Department of Physics and Applied Department of Software Engineering Department of Physics and Applied
Mathematics Vladimir State University Mathematics
Vladimir State University Vladimir, Russia Vladimir State University
Vladimir, Russia Lvovich1975@mail.ru Vladimir, Russia
Alexandr.Astafiev@mail.ru AADemidov@list.ru

Abstract—Currently, one of the most popular areas of
scientific research is the Internet of things. This work is aimed at
studying the operation of low-energy beacons operating on the
basis of Bluetooth Low Energy technology. In view of the fact that
these beacons operate in a very noisy frequency range, it is
necessary to conduct additional studies and propose approaches to
reducing the signal noise. The paper proposes the use of a
Butterworth filter to filter the resulting multidimensional series of
data on the signal level from the beacon. A mathematical
description of the algorithm is given, signal levels are measured in
laboratory conditions. Experimental studies of the operation of the
filtering algorithm on the obtained data sets were carried out.
Keywords—BLE, beacon, indoor positioning, Butterworth filter,
trilaceration, movement control
I. INTRODUCTION
According to the program “Development of the Digital
Economy in Russia until 2035”, one of the main technologies
that determine the transition to the digital economy is
identification technology [1], the development of which
methods the project aims to develop. In particular, the
development of AutoNet, MariNet and EnergyNet markets
requires the development of positioning systems and
autonomous navigation [1], such as RTLS (from the English.
Real-time Locating Systems - real-time positioning system).
The development of theoretical foundations and methods for the
development of intelligent autonomous navigation subsystems
for building RTLS systems has an important role in the
implementation of many promising projects, such as “smart
manufacturing”, “smart cities”, etc.
The research in the direction of positioning and navigation
based on low-energy beacons has shown high efficiency, as a
result of which the "giants" of the industry such as Google and
Apple began to conduct their own research in this area. The
result of Google’s research was the invention of the EddyStone
lighthouse data processing format - URL transfer (2015). Radius
Networks has created the AltBeacon format - the transmission
of a unique identifier (2014). Apple has developed its iBeacon
data transfer format for transmitting a unique identifier with a
grouping in two groups (2013).
The first mention of the use of low-energy technologies
according to information from the scientific electronic library
eLibrary [2] dates back to 2015 [3].
The first mention of positioning on the basis of low-energy
beacons in foreign scientific literature, according to Springer, is
also dated 2015. In their article [4], the authors conducted
studies that showed the effectiveness of technology for remote
control of gates in a “smart home”. The authors of Schwarz D.,
Schwarz M., Stückler J., Behnke S. in their article [5] attempted
to develop the application “Cosero, Find My Keys!” to search
for keys by a robot on a limited, pre-marked area.
In 2019, the number of articles on the use of low-energy
technologies for positioning and navigation (including indoor)
according to Springer publisher was 402 (Scopus, Web of
Science), according to eLibrary - 138.
Despite the large volume of research, most of them are of a
point and experimental nature in order to study the possibility of
using the technology, and not the theoretical development of
methods and algorithms to improve the quality of the results.
Based on this, the paper proposes a consideration of approaches
to filtering signals from Bluetooth Low Energy beacons to
compensate for noise.
The aim of the work is to conduct a comparative analysis and
the effect of applying digital signal filters to compensate for
noise in signals from Bluetooth Low Energy beacons using the
Butterworth filter as an example. To achieve the task it is
necessary to solve the following tasks:
1. To analyze the domestic and foreign scientific and
technical base on the research topic.
2. Conduct a comparative analysis of digital signal filters.
3. Implement a Butterworth filter to compensate for noise in
signals from Bluetooth Low Energy beacons.
4. Carry out experimental studies of the developed algorithm
and compare with similar filters.
II. SUBJECT OVERVIEW
The latest work on organizing navigation based on Bluetooth
Low Energy low-energy beacons can include the following.

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 2020 International Russian Automation Conference (RusAutoCon)
Authors Cheng Zhou, Jiazheng Yuan, Hongzhe Liu, Jing
Qiu in their work [6] consider the use of Bluetooth technology
4.0 for indoor positioning using a Kalman filter to suppress noise
and the influence of physical barriers on signal level. As a
positioning algorithm, multilateration based on the readings of
four beacons is used. Experimental studies were carried out at
the museum. The approach developed by the authors makes it
possible to accurately implement positioning indoors, however,
a feature of the algorithm is that in most cases the fourth point is
very far from the signal receiver, which reduces the accuracy of
positioning. Researching a team from the fifth point gives an
even bigger mistake.
The authors of Hee-Yong Kang, Ji-na Lee, Yoonkyu Kang,
Jong-Bae Kim, Hyung-Woo Park, Myung-Jin Bae in [7] use
Bluetooth Low Energy technology, distance measurement by
reading the RSSI signal level, pre-processing by Kalman filter
and coordinate prediction (Pedestrian dead reckoning (PDR)).
The studies were conducted in open space - in the stadium. The
combination of RSSI methods and numbering of coordinates
allowed the authors to achieve better accuracy, but it did not
exceed 2.2 meters. If this development is used indoors, this
parameter will be even lower.
The authors of Haifeng Cong, Liangbo Xie, Mu Zhou in their
work [8] fingerprint method of Bluetooth signals for positioning.
To improve positioning accuracy, a method is proposed for
automatic updating of the fingerprint database of radio signals
in view of changes in the external environment that affect signal
propagation.
Authors Patricio Lara-Alvarez, Janio Jadán-Guerrero, César
Guevara-Maldonado, Sandra Sanchez-Gordon, Tania Calle-
Jimenez, Luis Salvador-Ullauri, Patricia Acosta-Vargas,
Wilmer Illescas Espinoza in May [9] use Bluetooth Low to build
a positioning system for people with disabilities. For
implementation, the ready-made proximi.io library is used.
The authors of Xuyu Wang, Zhitao Yu, and Shiwen Mao in
[10] propose, in addition to a network of beacons, to build maps
of the illumination and magnetic fields of a controlled room to
aggregate the information received.
Filters are frequency-selective devices that transmit or delay
signals lying in specific frequency bands.
Filters can be classified by their frequency characteristics:
1. Low-pass filters (low-pass filters) - they pass all vibrations
with frequencies not higher than a certain cut-off frequency and
a constant component.
2. High-pass filters (low-pass filters) - allow all vibrations to
pass no lower than a certain cut-off frequency.
3. Band-pass filters (PF) - allow fluctuations in a certain
frequency band, which is determined by a certain level of
frequency response.
4. Band-suppression filters (PPF) - delay oscillations in a
certain frequency band, which is determined by a certain level
of frequency response.
5. Notch filters (RF) - a type of PPF having a narrow delay
band and also called a filter plug.
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6. Phase filters (FF) - have, in the ideal case, a constant
transmission coefficient at all frequencies and is designed to
change the phase of the input signals (in particular for the time
delay of the signals).
In turn, for processing digital signals can be used:
1. Kalman filter.
2. Simplified Kalman filter.
3. Butterworth filter.
4. Three-compartment median filter.
5. Five-compartment median filter.
6. Seven-section median filter.
7. Neural networks.
One of the most common approaches is to use a simplified
Kalman filter for a digital signal. The advantage of this filter is
that its use requires a small amount of input data, namely the
value of the previous filtered reading. However, this approach is
not recognized as effective, because does not take into account
the specifics of the signal - its mathematical model. In the project
under consideration, the simplified Kalman filter shows high
accuracy in the absence of movement of the controlled object.
When moving, the simplified Kalman filter “eats” part of the
useful signal.
In the full Kalman filter, a specific mathematical model of
the process in question is used for forecasting. That is, in the
positioning problem under consideration, we must know in
advance the direction and speed of the controlled object, which
is difficult. The only source of such data is inertial navigation,
which itself requires the use of filtering methods.
The Butterworth filter is one of the common electronic filters
in the theory of digital signal processing. The main difference
from the Kalman filter is that for filtering it is necessary to
transmit the entire time series of the signal for passage in both
directions.
III. BUTTERWORTH FILTER ALGORITHM IMPLEMENTATION
In order to compensate for emissions and interference in the
signals received from BLE beacons, the study proposes to use
the Butterworth filter. During the work, a software
implementation of this filter was made. The operation algorithm
can be described by the following sequence of actions:
1. The input of the algorithm receives a time series of data
obtained from a specific BLE beacon (IS - Input Signal), the
interval between measurements (deltaTimeInSec), and the
cutoff frequency (cutOff). An example of such a series of data
is shown in Figure 1.
example of time series of data obtained from a specific BLE beacon
 2020 International Russian Automation Conference (RusAutoCon)
2. The array received at the input is supplemented by four
service elements: 2 on each side.
3. The variables Wc, k1, k2, k3, a, b, c, d, e of the algorithm
are initialized according to the following formulas:

𝑊𝑊𝑊𝑊 = tan(𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑡𝑡𝑂𝑂𝑂𝑂𝑂𝑂 ∗ 𝜋𝜋 ∗ 𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑),

𝑘𝑘1 = √2 ∗ 𝑊𝑊𝑊𝑊,

𝑘𝑘2 = 𝑊𝑊𝑊𝑊 2 ,
𝑘𝑘2
𝑎𝑎 = ,
1+𝑘𝑘1+𝑘𝑘2

𝑏𝑏 = 2 ∗ 𝑎𝑎,

𝑐𝑐 = 𝑎𝑎,
𝑏𝑏
𝑘𝑘3 = ,
𝑘𝑘2

𝑑𝑑 = −2 ∗ 𝑎𝑎 + 𝑘𝑘3,

𝑒𝑒 = 1 − 2 ∗ 𝑎𝑎 − 𝑘𝑘3.

4. The service elements of the temporary direct pass array

(DFS - Direct Filtered Signal) are initialized in such a way that:

DFS [0] = DFS [1] = IS [0],

DFS [length + 2] = DFS [length + 1] = IS [length].

5. Next, each element of the DFS array starting from 3

elements and up to length is calculated by the formula:

DFS [i] = a * IS [i] + b * IS [i-1] + d * DFS [i-1] + c * IS [i-1]

+ e * DFS [i-2].

6. The service elements of the temporary backward pass

array (FFS - Forward Filtered Signal) are initialized in such a
way that:

FFS [length] = DFS [length + 2],

FFS [length + 1] = DFS [length + 3].

7. Next, each element of the FFS array starting from -length

+ 1 element and up to 0 is calculated by the formula:

FFS [-i] = a * DFS [-i + 2] + b * DFS [-i + 3] + d * FFS [-i +

1] + c * DSF [-i + 4] + e * FFS [ -i + 2].

8. We remove 2 service elements from the FFS array and get

a filtered signal.
The block diagram of the algorithm is shown in Figure 2.
The block diagram of the Butterworth filter algorithm implementation

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 2020 International Russian Automation Conference (RusAutoCon)
IV. EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH During the experiment, measurements were made at each of
To conduct experimental studies, measurements were taken their positions, shown in Figure 4. As a result of each
of the RSSI signal level in a pre-marked room. The floor plan is measurement, a multidimensional time series was obtained,
shown in Figure 3. The following equipment was used for this: consisting of 4 data series - one for each BLE beacon.

1. A mobile device for reading RSSI signal strength After obtaining the time series (Figure 1), the following data
indications based on the Android operating system. processing was performed:

2. BLE beacons based on the specification of Bluetooth 5.0. 1. The average signal value was found - which was taken as
the reference value.
3. A personal computer for collecting, processing and
visualizing the information received. 2. The entire time series was shifted along the OY axis by
the average value (Figure 5).

Time series of noise

3. The remaining data can be mistaken for noise and it is

necessary to establish the nature of this noise. To do this, a
histogram of the noise distribution is constructed (Figure 6),
which reflects the law of its distribution.

Floor plan

BLE beacons were placed along the perimeter of the room

and 4 measurement zones were marked. The layout of
lighthouses and zones is shown in Figure 4.

Noise distribution law

4. As a result, the Butterworth filter is applied to the time

series (Figure 7).

Butterworth filter operation example

V. CONCLUSIONS
In conclusion, we can conclude that the Butterworth filter
can be used to filter signals from BLE beacons, but the main
problem is that the filter requires a large sample, and an increase
in the number of values in the time series of the signal will slow
down the filtering process.

The layout of lighthouses and zones

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 2020 International Russian Automation Conference (RusAutoCon)
This work was financially supported by the Ministry of
Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation (State
task of VlSU GB-1187/20).
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