scholarly journals Real-Time Indoor Positioning Approach Using iBeacons and Smartphone Sensors

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liu Liu ◽  
Bofeng Li ◽  
Ling Yang ◽  
Tianxia Liu

For localization in daily life, low-cost indoor positioning systems should provide real-time locations with a reasonable accuracy. Considering the flexibility of deployment and low price of iBeacon technique, we develop a real-time fusion workflow to improve localization accuracy of smartphone. First, we propose an iBeacon-based method by integrating a trilateration algorithm with a specific fingerprinting method to resist RSS fluctuations, and obtain accurate locations as the baseline result. Second, as turns are pivotal for positioning, we segment pedestrian trajectories according to turns. Then, we apply a Kalman filter (KF) to heading measurements in each segment, which improves the locations derived by pedestrian dead reckoning (PDR). Finally, we devise another KF to fuse the iBeacon-based approach with the PDR to overcome orientation noises. We implemented this fusion workflow in an Android smartphone and conducted real-time experiments in a building floor. Two different routes with sharp turns were selected. The positioning accuracy of the iBeacon-based method is RMSE 2.75 m. When the smartphone is held steadily, the fusion positioning tests result in RMSE of 2.39 and 2.22 m for the two routes. In addition, the other tests with orientation noises can still result in RMSE of 3.48 and 3.66 m. These results demonstrate our fusion workflow can improve the accuracy of iBeacon positioning and alleviate the influence of PDR drifting.

Electronics ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (12) ◽  
pp. 1463 ◽  
Author(s):  
André G. Ferreira ◽  
Duarte Fernandes ◽  
André P. Catarino ◽  
Ana M. Rocha ◽  
João L. Monteiro

Combining different technologies is gaining significant popularity among researchers and industry for the development of indoor positioning systems (IPSs). These hybrid IPSs emerge as a robust solution for indoor localization as the drawbacks of each technology can be mitigated or even eliminated by using complementary technologies. However, fusing position estimates from different technologies is still very challenging and, therefore, a hot research topic. In this work, we pose fusing the ultrawideband (UWB) position estimates with the estimates provided by a pedestrian dead reckoning (PDR) by using a Kalman filter. To improve the IPS accuracy, a decision-making algorithm was developed that aims to assess the usability of UWB measurements based on the identification of non-line-of-sight (NLOS) conditions. Three different data fusion algorithms are tested, based on three different time-of-arrival positioning algorithms, and experimental results show a localization accuracy of below 1.5 m for a 99th percentile.


Sensors ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (18) ◽  
pp. 5343
Author(s):  
Miroslav Opiela ◽  
František Galčík

Indoor positioning systems for smartphones are often based on Pedestrian Dead Reckoning, which computes the current position from the previously estimated location. Noisy sensor measurements, inaccurate step length estimations, faulty direction detections, and a demand on the real-time calculation introduce the error which is suppressed using a map model and a Bayesian filtering. The main focus of this paper is on grid-based implementations of Bayes filters as an alternative to commonly used Kalman and particle filters. Our previous work regarding grid-based filters is elaborated and enriched with convolution mask calculations. More advanced implementations, the centroid grid filter, and the advanced point-mass filter are introduced. These implementations are analyzed and compared using different configurations on the same raw sensor recordings. The evaluation is performed on three sets of experiments: a custom simple path in faculty building in Slovakia, and on datasets from IPIN competitions from a shopping mall in France, 2018 and a research institute in Italy, 2019. Evaluation results suggests that proposed methods are qualified alternatives to the particle filter. Advantages, drawbacks and proper configurations of these filters are discussed in this paper.


Author(s):  
E. Gulo ◽  
G. Sohn ◽  
A. Afnan

<p><strong>Abstract.</strong> With the increasing number and usage of mobile devices in people’s daily life, indoor positioning has attracted a lot attention from both academia and industry for the purpose of providing location-aware services. This work proposes an indoor positioning system, primarily based on WLAN fingerprint matching, that includes various minor improvements to improve the positioning accuracy of the algorithm, as well as improve the quality and reduce the collection time of the reference fingerprints. In addition, a novel Path Evaluation and Retroactive Adjustment module is employed; it intends to improve the positioning accuracy of the system in a similar fashion to a Pedestrian Dead Reckoning implemented along with WLAN Fingerprint Matching in a Sensor Fusion system. The benefit of this approach being that it avoids the requirement of inertial sensor data, as well as its intensive computation and power use, while providing a similar accuracy improvement to Pedestrian Dead Reckoning. Our experimental results demonstrate that this may be a viable approach for positioning using mobile devices in an indoor environment.</p>


Author(s):  
Vinh Truong-Quang ◽  
Thong Ho-Sy

WiFi-based indoor positioning is widely exploited thanks to the existing WiFi infrastructure in buildings and built-in sensors in smartphones. The techniques for indoor positioning require the high-density training data to archive high accuracy with high computation complexity. In this paper, the approach for indoor positioning systems which is called the maximum convergence algorithm is proposed to find the accurate location by the strongest receiver signal in the small cluster and K nearest neighbours (KNN) of other clusters. Also, the K-mean clustering is deployed for each access point to reduce the computation complexity of the offline databases. Moreover, the pedestrian dead reckoning (PDR) method and Kalman filter with the information from the received signal strength (RSS) and inertial sensors are applied to the WiFi fingerprinting to increase the efficiency of the mobile object's position. The different experiments are performed to compare the proposed algorithm with the others using KNN and PDR. The recommended framework demonstrates significant proceed based on the results. The average precision of this system can be lower than 1.02 meters when testing in the laboratory environment with an area of 7x7 m using three access points.


Sensors ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 185
Author(s):  
Fang-Shii Ning ◽  
Yu-Chun Chen

Although advancement has been observed in global navigation satellite systems and these systems are widely used, they cannot provide effective navigation and positioning services in covered areas and areas that lack strong signals, such as indoor environments. Therefore, in recent years, indoor positioning technology has become the focus of research and development. The magnetic field of the Earth is quite stable in an open environment. Due to differences in building and internal structures, this type of three-dimensional vector magnetic field is widely available indoors for indoor positioning. A smartphone magnetometer was used in this study to collect magnetic field data for constructing indoor magnetic field maps. Moreover, an acceleration sensor and a gyroscope were used to identify the position of a mobile phone and detect the number of steps travelled by users with the phone. This study designed a procedure for measuring the step length of users. All obtained information was input into a pedestrian dead reckoning (PDR) algorithm for calculating the position of the device. The indoor positioning accuracy of the PDR algorithm was optimised using magnetic gradients of magnetic field maps with a modified particle filter algorithm. Experimental results reveal that the indoor positioning accuracy was between 0.6 and 0.8 m for a testing area that was 85 m long and 33 m wide. This study effectively improved the indoor positioning accuracy and efficiency by using the particle filter method in combination with the PDR algorithm with the magnetic fingerprint map.


Sensors ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (24) ◽  
pp. 5577 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuqin Wang ◽  
Ao Peng ◽  
Zhichao Lin ◽  
Lingxiang Zheng ◽  
Huiru Zheng

Visual inertial odometers (VIOs) have received increasing attention in the area of indoor positioning due to the universality and convenience of the camera. However, the visual observation of VIO is more susceptible to the environment, and the error of observation affects the final positioning accuracy. To address this issue, we analyzed the causes of visual observation error that occur under different scenarios and their impact on positioning accuracy. We propose a new method of using the short-time reliability of pedestrian dead reckoning (PDR) to aid in visual integrity monitoring and to reduce positioning error. The proposed method selects optimized positioning by automatically switching between outputs from VIO and PDR. Experiments were carried out to test and evaluate the proposed PDR-assisted visual integrity monitoring. The sensor suite of experiments consisted of a stereo camera and an inertial measurement unit (IMU). Results were analyzed in detailed and indicated that the proposed system performs better for indoor positioning within an environment that contains low illumination, little background texture information, or few moving objects.


2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 50-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Haval Darwesh Abdalkarim ◽  
Halgurd Sarhang Maghdid

In the last decade, there is a significant progression and huge demand in using technology; specifically, those technologies are embedded in smartphones (SP). Examples of these technologies are embedding various sensors for multi-purposes. Positioning sensors (Accelerometer, Gyroscope, and Magnetometer) are one of the significant technologies. Besides this, indoor positioning services on smartphones are the main advantage of these sensors. There are many indoor positioning applications, for instance; billing, shopping, security and safety, indoor navigation, entertainment applications, and other point-of-interest (POI) applications. Nevertheless, precise position information through current positioning techniques is the main issue of these applications. The pedestrian dead reckoning (PDR) technique is one of the techniques in which the integration of onboard sensors is used for locating smartphones. Estimated distance, heading, and typical speed can be measured to determine the estimated position of the smartphone via using the PDR technique. The PDR technique offers a low positioning accuracy due to existing accumulated errors of the embedded sensors. To solve this issue, this article proposes a hybrid multi-sensors measurement to reduce the existing sensors drifts and errors and to increase estimated heading accuracy of the smartphone. Further, the sensors’ measurements with the previously estimated position are fused by using KALMAN Filter to determine the current location of the smartphone in each step of walking with better angular displacement accuracy. Proposed algorithm depends on increasing estimated angular displacement of the smartphone using combination of the integrated sensors’ measurements. The achieved positioning accuracy through the proposed approach and based on trial experiments is around 2 meters, which is equivalent to 10% improvement in comparison with state of the art.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 504 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yue Yu ◽  
Ruizhi Chen ◽  
Liang Chen ◽  
Guangyi Guo ◽  
Feng Ye ◽  
...  

More and more applications of location-based services lead to the development of indoor positioning technology. Wi-Fi-based indoor localization has been attractive due to its extensive distribution and low cost properties. IEEE 802.11-2016 now includes a Wi-Fi Fine Time Measurement (FTM) protocol which provides a more robust approach for Wi-Fi ranging between the mobile terminal and Wi-Fi access point (AP). To improve the positioning accuracy, in this paper, we propose a robust dead reckoning algorithm combining the results of Wi-Fi FTM and multiple sensors (DRWMs). A real-time Wi-Fi ranging model is built which can effectively reduce the Wi-Fi ranging errors, and then a multisensor multi-pattern-based dead reckoning is presented. In addition, the Unscented Kalman filter (UKF) is applied to fuse the results of Wi-Fi ranging model and multiple sensors. The experiment results show that the proposed DRWMs algorithm can achieve accurate localization performance in line-of-sight/non-line-of-sight (LOS)/(NLOS) mixed indoor environment. Compared with the traditional Wi-Fi positioning method and the traditional dead reckoning method, the proposed algorithm is more stable and has better real-time performance for indoor positioning.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (6) ◽  
pp. 1048 ◽  
Author(s):  
Huy Tran ◽  
Cheolkeun Ha

Recently, indoor positioning systems have attracted a great deal of research attention, as they have a variety of applications in the fields of science and industry. In this study, we propose an innovative and easily implemented solution for indoor positioning. The solution is based on an indoor visible light positioning system and dual-function machine learning (ML) algorithms. Our solution increases positioning accuracy under the negative effect of multipath reflections and decreases the computational time for ML algorithms. Initially, we perform a noise reduction process to eliminate low-intensity reflective signals and minimize noise. Then, we divide the floor of the room into two separate areas using the ML classification function. This significantly reduces the computational time and partially improves the positioning accuracy of our system. Finally, the regression function of those ML algorithms is applied to predict the location of the optical receiver. By using extensive computer simulations, we have demonstrated that the execution time required by certain dual-function algorithms to determine indoor positioning is decreased after area division and noise reduction have been applied. In the best case, the proposed solution took 78.26% less time and provided a 52.55% improvement in positioning accuracy.


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