How to improve Bluetooth distance measuring using RSSI?

Question

For my project I need to estimate the distance between a Smartphone and a bluetooth module. The Estimation doesn\'t have to be very precise. I only need to determine the dis

Answer 1

You are running into the practical limitations on this technology. Getting estimation accuracy of +/- 50 cm may be possible under ideal conditions at short distances (under 2 meters) not at long distances of over 10 meters.

I wrote a longer blog post about the limits here: http://developer.radiusnetworks.com/2014/12/04/fundamentals-of-beacon-ranging.html

To answer your specific questions:

1. No, there is no practical way to know what part of a single RSSI measurement comes from signal and what part comes from noise. You can take an average over many samples, which partially removes noise if the transmitter and receiver are stationary over the sample interval.

2. The techniques you ask about do work to give you distance estimate, but they have the limitations of the technology described above.