Indoor Positioning

With the rapid development and wide deployment of wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs), WLAN-based po- sitioning system employing signal-strength-based technique has become an attractive solution for location estimation in indoor environment. In recent years, a number of such systems has been presented, and most of the systems use the common Nearest Neighbor in Signal Space (NNSS) algorithm. In this paper,

A real-time, Indoor navigation systems utilize ultra-wide band (UWB), radio-frequency identification (RFID) and received signal strength (RSS) techniques that encompass WiFi, FM, mobile communications, and other similar technologies. These systems typically require surplus infrastructure for their implementation, which results in significantly increased costs and complexity. Therefore, as a solution to reduce the level of cost and complexity, an inertial measurement unit (IMU) and quick response (QR) codes are utilized in this paper to facilitate navigation with the assistance of a smartphone. The QR code helps to compensate for errors caused by the pedestrian dead reckoning (PDR) algorithm, thereby providing more accurate localization. The proposed algorithm having IMU in conjunction with QR code shows an accuracy of 0.64 m which is higher than existing indoor navigation techniques.

There are many applications for outdoor navigation but still less application for indoor navigation are available. In complex unknown indoor environments such as public buildings, railway stations, airports, hospitals, is difficult and time consuming to find the destination. In this paper, we design a mixed reality based indoor navigation system to assist people to navigate in an unknown indoor environment. We use mixed reality head mounted display HoloLens for this prototype. HoloLens scan the environment, find user position in the environment and show the shortest path to the target area. User can select their destination by the graphical user interface display in the HoloLens and also via voice command. Then our system shows the visual augmented path to the user. We use A* pathfinding algorithm for finding the shortest path from the user to the destination.

We live surrounded by computing devices, but applications are mostly confined to run on a single device. It should be possible to make better use of the multiple devices around us by coming up with ways of integrating and combining them, while leveraging the specific strengths of some devices and minimizing the individual weaknesses of others. We want to explore the possibility of building applications that have their user interface seamlessly distributed across co-located devices. We created the YanuX Framework to provide the guidelines and tools needed by developers to build those applications. This paper presents the framework and its architecture, which is outlined along with the description of its components. We end by presenting an early evaluation of YanuX and by discussing the status of our work along with directions for further research.

... For example, tourists need indoor navigation services in some large museums to see the artifacts in different places in sequence. In addition, posi-tion information brings benefits to self-organization and self-formation of ad hoc networks in the future communications systems. ...

Construction progress monitoring has been perceived as one of the key factors that prompt the achievement of a construction project. However, assessing the progress is time consuming, costly and obliges specialized personnel to reduce disagreements and approximate the actual performance to the original plan as close as possible. Image processing is a promising method that has been developed for automated monitoring of construction projects. It has attracted increasing attention for progress monitoring, quality assurance and work space analyses. Nonetheless, remarkable drawbacks still remain in image processing, particularly for outdoor environment such as construction progress monitoring. The principle downside of image processing goes back to the image resolution. Ambient lightning condition significantly affects the image quality which does affect the accuracy of data, extracted from related images. Much research strives to reduce the level of errors for data extraction but so far none has been able to deliver complete satisfactory and reliable result. In this research a novel approach based on thermal image analysis is presented. The new method consists of three phases: First, collecting the thermal and original images by utilizing Infrared-Camera. Second, estimating the position of captured images by the use of wireless sensor network implemented in the work space. Finally, the 3D plan will be updated automatically in the Building Information Modeling (BIM) software. The preliminary experimental results from an actual concrete building construction site show the feasibility of inferring the actual state of progress by the use of thermal images to overcome the limitation of vision monitoring. 

AUTOMATED CONSTRUCTION PROGRESS MONITORING USING THERMAL IMAGES AND WIRELESS SENSOR NETWORKS. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/275024236_AUTOMATED_CONSTRUCTION_PROGRESS_MONITORING_USING_THERMAL_IMAGES_AND_WIRELESS_SENSOR_NETWORKS#share [accessed Sep 11, 2015].

RFID markers are proving to be a cheap and reliable enabler for indoor positioning applications. Motivated by this we have developed a concrete embeddable passive RFID tag for robust and long-lasting way-point identification. Embedding commercially available passive tags in concrete significantly reduces their read range and hence, usefulness as markers. By appropriate redesign of the antenna and packaging we have extended hand-held readability of concrete embedded passive tags beyond one meter. This paper details the background R&D of our prototype tags, including test and measurement results.

Nowadays most of commonly used positioning and location detection systems, accessible via mobile phones, are usually targeted to open spaces, since adopted technologies are mainly based on GPS and satellite tracking, which are robust for outdoor environments. Only in recent years the focus has passed to indoor venues where people spend about 80% - 90% of their time. The goal of indoor positioning in some applications, notably oriented to hospitals and malls, is to monitor people into a structure or provide navigation support, others want to use indoor positioning to better understand how customers behaves, enhance their satisfaction, branding and marketing for the venue, provide just-in-time information (for instance, intelligent audio guides for tours) or offer, by the means of location information, video or augmented reality experiences or connect people of interest in proximity to each another. In other words, indoor positioning systems (IPSs) enable location-awareness for mobile devices in ubiquitous and pervasive wireless computing systems. The need for connectivity, access and navigation has fueled research and investments in this field. A different and innovative solution for developing an indoor positioning system (IPS) could be based on the adoption of a low-cost transmitting infrastructure, based on a limited number of Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons, not requesting to the installer any effort (no on-site surveys) by defining a real-time and environment-adaptive signal propagation model, based on the evolution of Received Signal Strengths Indicator over time. Accordingly, the present work aims at advancing knowledge about a feasible adoption of BLE for positioning purposes in restricted (room, offices, etc.) ranges. To do so, the evolution and stability of Bluetooth Low Energy signal is studied is firstly evaluated in order to validate its relationship with respect to changing distances between transmiter and receiver. Secondly, a dynamic model based on Bayesian filtering techniques to detect model parameters is proposed. The biggest difference between Bayesian method and the traditional positioning methods lies in the fact that Bayesian method does not focus on obtaining a more accurate and stable RSSI signal from each beacon (which seems complex for this kind of signal), but on obtaining a more reliable sample collection, and through continuous updating of particles and related weights, eventually, it will converge to the most probable propagation model parameters distribution. Results show an increased accuracy with respect to other commonly widespread methods, based on linear regression on the curve describing the relation between listened power and distance.

The relationships between museums, artefacts and original sites are complex. How may we use mobile augmented reality (AR) to bridge the gaps between both indoors and outdoors exhibitions as well as the opposition between central collections and the more peripheral sites of the original artefacts? In this paper we present two main cases (the Viking Ship Museum in Oslo and the Calmecac Museum in Mexico City) where we have experimented with bringing a digital copy of the displaced artefact back to its original environment, as well as bringing a digital copy of the original environment into the displaced or isolated object in the museum exhibition. Further, we report on a solution to solve the problem with indoor positioning (IPS) and how it can be seamlessly combined with GPS-based outdoor positioning for smooth transitions between inside and outside. Finally, these cases were tested with three different hardware platforms tablets, smartphones and smartglasses.

The quality of learning environment in classroom setting is critical to effective teaching and learning process in classroom. This research paper presents the results of study conducted in West Pokot County public Early Childhood Development Education centres with regard to classroom environmental setting and provision of quality education. The study involved use of qualitative and quantitative research methodology. The target population for the research involved 365 head teachers, 682 teachers and 4 DICECE officers. Data for the research was collected through use of questionnaire, interview and researcher observation. Data collected was analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics for quantitative data and thematic content analysis for qualitative data. Research results showed that 37.1% of ECDE centres studied were not having standardised environmental setting that could facilitate provision of quality education to pupils in West Pokot County. It was found out that less than 50% of classrooms were ventilated, only 24.9% of classrooms studied were found to have enough space for easy classroom movement and 36.1% of classrooms were found to be accessible by all learners. The study recommends that there is need for ECDE teachers to work with head teachers to ensure that classrooms setting are safe, secure and conducive for teaching and learning process. On the policy front, there is need for county government to work with national government to establish appropriate standards for ideal indoor classroom environmental setting for ECDE learners.

In today's technological world of privacy-conscious users, the tracking of individuals via different positioning systems and services can be considered obtrusive. Furthermore, linking and integrating data from these positioning systems is not always possible or requires the major effort of creating new interfaces between systems. In this paper, we propose an architecture for the realisation of a decentralised positioning system based on the W3C's Solid platform specification. Using this specification, sensor data as well as an individual's location information is stored in secure decentralised data stores called Pods, that are hosted by user-selected Pod providers. We demonstrate that these Pods do not only offer transparent and interoperable data stores for persisting sensor data as well as processed location information, but also aid in linking multiple positioning systems for high-and low-level sensor fusion. For indoor positioning, this interoperability provides a way to offer users a single location-based service while also providing additional semantic context for other positioning systems to improve their data output. Developers of indoor positioning systems can store all data in a format that is readable, understandable and accessible by any other system that their users might be using, enabling collaboration between researchers and companies implementing these indoor positioning systems.

—Indoor localization has recently witnessed an increase in interest, due to the potential wide range of services it can provide by leveraging Internet of Things (IoT), and ubiquitous connectivity. Different techniques, wireless technologies and mechanisms have been proposed in the literature to provide indoor localization services in order to improve the services provided to the users. However, there is a lack of an up-to-date survey paper that incorporates some of the recently proposed accurate and reliable localization systems. In this paper, we aim to provide a detailed survey of different indoor localization techniques such as Angle of Arrival (AoA), Time of Flight (ToF), Return Time of Flight (RTOF), Received Signal Strength (RSS); based on technologies such as WiFi, Radio Frequency Identification Device (RFID), Ultra Wideband (UWB), Bluetooth and systems that have been proposed in the literature. The paper primarily discusses localization and positioning of human users and their devices. We highlight the strengths of the existing systems proposed in the literature. In contrast with the existing surveys, we also evaluate different systems from the perspective of energy efficiency, availability, cost, reception range, latency, scalability and tracking accuracy. Rather than comparing the technologies or techniques, we compare the localization systems and summarize their working principle. We also discuss remaining challenges to accurate indoor localization.

The International Journal of Computer Networks & Communications (IJCNC) is a bi monthly open access peer-reviewed journal that publishes articles which contribute new results in all areas of Computer Networks & Communications.The journal focuses on all technical and practical aspects of Computer Networks & data Communications. The goal of this journal is to bring together researchers and practitioners from academia and industry to focus on advanced networking concepts and establishing new collaborations in these areas.

Las redes LAN que utilizan el protocolo IEEE 802.11 son cada vez más prolíferas debido a las grandes ventajas que proporciona la no utilización de cables y debido a las altas tasas de transmisión que ofrecen. Por otro lado, la utilización de la red Wifi, que se rige por dicho protocolo IEEE 802.11, no es propia únicamente de los routers o PCs, sino que también es predominante en los dispositivos móviles. Si bien los dispositivos móviles tienen distintas formas de transmisión de datos, la utilización del Wifi en tales dispositivos ha experimentado un gran crecimiento en estos últimos años debido a la rápida evolución a los conocidos Smatphones.  Mediante el proyecto PeopleData, tal como vamos a denominar a este trabajo de investigación, se va a analizar y diseñar, en este contexto, un sistema que permita la obtención del mayor número de información relevante de los usuarios, una información que es transmitida a través de sus dispositivos móviles por el mero hecho de tener activada la funcionalidad Wifi. Además, el presente proyecto estará orientado a obtener esta información de forma barata, en código abierto y capturando información de forma pasiva a través del protocolo IEEE 802.11. Así pues, durante el periodo de este estudio se analizarán posibles soluciones en las que los datos capturados puedan ser de interés, además de desarrollar un prototipo capaz de obtener información útil de los usuarios con dispositivo móvil, filtrarla y procesarla. Finalmente, con el objetivo de comprobar la validez de los cálculos y predicciones teóricas, se realizarán pruebas piloto en diferentes entornos.

An unprecedented demand for connecting physical objects with the internet expedites the realization of internet of things, thus creating new challenges to explore new spectrums which are suitable for communication. Visible light communication (VLC) is one promising candidate not only to remove the spectrum crunch issues but also to offer virtually unlimited, unregulated spectrum. This paper discusses how VLC can help solving spectrum crunch, non-availability issues of radio frequency spectrum and how readily available spectrum of VLC can be utilized to cope up with the bandwidth requirements of next-generation networks. Furthermore, this paper also lists the technological innovations in the area of VLC from early days till present and its possible applications in various domains.

The World Health Organization estimated in 2014 that 285 million people worldwide are visually impaired: 39 million are blind and 246 million have low vision. Islam is a universal religion; achieving equality is one of its most important values. Islam is a faith community in which everybody interacts with everybody else. The Holy Quraan mentioned the disabled as part of our life, discussed their rights and urged to take care of them in more than one place. Therefore, everyone has a responsibility to contribute to the best of their ability. In order to achieve equality for blind people, a suitable environment should be offered to them to facilitate their mobility in public spaces and holy spaces like Mosques.
Mobility and orientation are very challenging for blind or visually impaired persons. Difficulties in wayfinding may cause stress and anxiety, which may discourage them to visit unknown places. Therefore, blind Muslims have the right to navigate inside mosques without any direct help, providing essential information for them, such as Qibla direction, ablution places and other facilities. Several mobile applications have been developed to help blind or visually impaired people to find their ways in large spatial environments, yet religious environments require such applications to help B/VI people navigate inside mosques without direct help. Most of these applications depend mainly on GPS. However, it is argued that GPS is inadequate for indoor localization due to the loss of GPS signal indoors. Accordingly, this paper introduces an indoor positioning system, relying on Bluetooth devices.
Thanks to the increasing number of portable devices, this study aims to utilize indoor
positioning system techniques to potentially facilitate the navigation and the perception of blind people in mosque indoor environments. The study offers a conceptual approach that investigates how Bluetooth localization can be used as a promising technique for that aim by distributing low energy beacons along the floor plan of the mosque which are uniquely identified by the user’s smart phone and can be accessed using voice recognition technique. Decisions are accordingly communicated to users via virtual verbal guidance. The paper also opens a discussion about the potential challenges and concerns which future explorations, scientific research and real-world applications of indoor positioning systems will encounter.

Youtube Link : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hh7hY2QKka0

Indoor Positioning System (IPS)  Using WiFi Rssi

The indoor location-based control system estimates the indoor position of a user to provide the service he/she requires. The major elements involved in the system are the localization server, service-provision client, user application positioning technology. The localization server controls access of terminal devices (e.g., Smart Phones and other wireless devices) to determine their locations within a specified space first and then the service-provision client initiates required services such as indoor navigation and monitoring/surveillance. The user application provides necessary data to let the server to localize the devices or allow the user to receive various services from the client.

Indoor modeling and mapping has been an active area of research in last 20 years in order to tackle the problems related to positioning and tracking of people and objects indoors, and provides many opportunities for several domains ranging from emergency response to logistics in micro urban spaces. The outputs of recent research in the field have been presented in several scientific publications and events primarily related to spatial information science and technology. This paper summarizes the outputs of last 10 years of research on indoor modeling and mapping within a proper classification which covers 7 areas, i.e. Information Acquisition by Sensors, Model Definition, Model Integration, Indoor Positioning and LBS, Routing & Navigation Methods, Augmented and Virtual Reality Applications, and Ethical Issues. Finally, the paper outlines the current and future research directions and concluding remarks.

Apart from being extremely dependent on GNSS (GPS, GLONASS, GALLILEO, etc.) technologies for outdoor positioning, an indoor positioning technology can vary mainly due to dynamic environment. Indoor positioning systems in past year are becoming more and more popular because it’s easier to deploy than ever, due to the growing use of the smartphones. This small devices are equipped with sensors which can sense move, inclination, speed, signal strength … Despite of that, the domination of single indoor technology has not yet being achieved, thus the paper will present each technology, principles and approaches, it will be pointed out some system combinations and it will present some available products as examples. Finally, some pros and cons during research are noted as well as prediction in terms of domination of certain systems.