Location Fingerprinting With Bluetooth Low Energy Beacons
TL;DR: This work provides a detailed study of BLE fingerprinting using 19 beacons distributed around a ~600 m2 testbed to position a consumer device, and investigates the choice of key parameters in a BLE positioning system, including beacon density, transmit power, and transmit frequency.
Abstract: The complexity of indoor radio propagation has resulted in location-awareness being derived from empirical fingerprinting techniques, where positioning is performed via a previously-constructed radio map, usually of WiFi signals. The recent introduction of the Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) radio protocol provides new opportunities for indoor location. It supports portable battery-powered beacons that can be easily distributed at low cost, giving it distinct advantages over WiFi. However, its differing use of the radio band brings new challenges too. In this work, we provide a detailed study of BLE fingerprinting using 19 beacons distributed around a $\sim\! 600\ \mbox{m}^2$ testbed to position a consumer device. We demonstrate the high susceptibility of BLE to fast fading, show how to mitigate this, and quantify the true power cost of continuous BLE scanning. We further investigate the choice of key parameters in a BLE positioning system, including beacon density, transmit power, and transmit frequency. We also provide quantitative comparison with WiFi fingerprinting. Our results show advantages to the use of BLE beacons for positioning. For one-shot (push-to-fix) positioning we achieve $30\ \mbox{m}^2$ ), compared to $100\ \mbox{m}^2$ ) and < 8.5 m for an established WiFi network in the same area.
Citations
More filters
10 Jun 2022
TL;DR: A prototype location-based system that uses Bluetooth Low Energy beacons for short-range positioning in outdoor environments as a GPS alternative is designed, develops, and evaluates and a set of guidelines to be considered in choosing a suitable positioning technology is outlined.
Abstract: Abstract. Although Global Positioning System (GPS) is widely used in outdoor location-based services, it still lacks precision due to obstacles that reduce its performance, such as near tall buildings, with bad weather conditions, and under tree canopies. In some situations, inaccurate localization or delay in getting location locks can adversely affect some location-based services’ functionality. Furthermore, it might make these services less efficient or even completely useless, especially when the receiver device has no SIM card or when the service requires a precision higher than three meters. As a solution to this issue, this study designs, develops, and evaluates a prototype location-based system that uses Bluetooth Low Energy beacons for short-range positioning in outdoor environments as a GPS alternative. The proposed system is a game that includes navigational tasks, which can be accomplished by reaching the proximity of two meters from the beacon’s location. The study involved conducting an experiment outdoors with a focus on areas where GPS signals are degraded to assess our proposed system’s efficiency and feasibility compared to the usage of GPS. The results proved BLE beacons’ ability to provide better positioning results than GPS, not only in terms of accuracy but also in terms of stability of positioning results over time. Based on the findings, the study outlines a set of guidelines to be considered in choosing a suitable positioning technology.
1 citations
05 Oct 2020
TL;DR: The article discusses the suitability of the multiwall radio wave propagation model for RSSI reference data preparation for fingerprinting-based indoor positioning applications and shows that for some cases it is possible to use less complex propagation models without losing sufficient localization accuracy.
Abstract: The article discusses the suitability of the multiwall radio wave propagation model for RSSI reference data preparation for fingerprinting-based indoor positioning applications. Localization system employs Bluetooth Low Energy beacons and mobile device to determine position of the user within the test area. The proposed system uses particle filter algorithm to estimate the user's current position from RSSI measurements and knowledge of reference electromagnetic field distribution computed for each beacon located in the building. The results of the comparison between the use of multiwall and ray tracing propagation models for indoor localization purposes has been shown. The relation between the time needed to prepare mentioned reference data was also demonstrated. Presented results show that for some cases it is possible to use less complex propagation models without losing sufficient localization accuracy but for the benefit of the time and complexity of calculations needed to prepare reference data for presented indoor localization application.
1 citations
01 Dec 2020
TL;DR: In this paper, a novel indoor positioning method designed for residential apartments is presented, which makes use of cellular signals emitting from a serving eNodeB and utilizes denoising autoencoders to mitigate the effects of cellular signal loss.
Abstract: This paper presents a novel indoor positioning method designed for residential apartments. The proposed method makes use of cellular signals emitting from a serving eNodeB which eliminates the need for specialized positioning infrastructure. Additionally, it utilizes Denoising Autoencoders to mitigate the effects of cellular signal loss. We evaluated the pro-posed method using real-world data collected from two different smartphones inside a representative apartment of eight symbolic spaces. Experimental results verify that the proposed method outperforms conventional symbolic indoor positioning techniques in various performance metrics. To promote reproducibility and foster new research efforts, we made all the data and codes associated with this work publicly available.
1 citations
19 Apr 2018
TL;DR: It's proved that the proposed indoor positioning method based on hand free device –smart bracelet has good robustness and can accurately locate the elderly in the indoor environment.
Abstract: In order to track the trajectory of the elderly with dementia in indoor environment, it is important to constantly to monitor the position of the elderly with dementia. Therefore, we proposed an indoor positioning method based on hand free device –smart bracelet. The challenge of the indoor positioning basing on smart bracelet is that the Bluetooth signal is not only subject to indoor environments, but also affected by the motion of hand. Indoor items, body shading and other factors will cause the signal diffraction, reflection or even loss. For this challenge, we use median filter to reprocess the original signal and integrated the RSSI features with the features of the wrist's gestures. After that we use random forest to establish the position model and adopt the finite state machine(FSM) to calibrate the result of the classify model. It's proved that the proposed system has good robustness and can accurately locate the elderly in the indoor environment.
Cites methods from "Location Fingerprinting With Blueto..."
...triangle positioning [5, 6] and position fingerprint [7] method are used in indoor positioning basing on Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) technology, the accuracy of indoor positioning is increased....
[...]
References
More filters
01 Nov 2007
TL;DR: Comprehensive performance comparisons including accuracy, precision, complexity, scalability, robustness, and cost are presented.
Abstract: Wireless indoor positioning systems have become very popular in recent years. These systems have been successfully used in many applications such as asset tracking and inventory management. This paper provides an overview of the existing wireless indoor positioning solutions and attempts to classify different techniques and systems. Three typical location estimation schemes of triangulation, scene analysis, and proximity are analyzed. We also discuss location fingerprinting in detail since it is used in most current system or solutions. We then examine a set of properties by which location systems are evaluated, and apply this evaluation method to survey a number of existing systems. Comprehensive performance comparisons including accuracy, precision, complexity, scalability, robustness, and cost are presented.
4,123 citations
"Location Fingerprinting With Blueto..." refers background in this paper
...Indoor positioning is a mature research field, with many proposed technologies and techniques—comprehensive overviews can be found in [2], [18], [19]....
[...]
06 Jun 2005
TL;DR: The Horus system identifies different causes for the wireless channel variations and addresses them and uses location-clustering techniques to reduce the computational requirements of the algorithm and the lightweight Horus algorithm helps in supporting a larger number of users by running the algorithm at the clients.
Abstract: We present the design and implementation of the Horus WLAN location determination system. The design of the Horus system aims at satisfying two goals: high accuracy and low computational requirements. The Horus system identifies different causes for the wireless channel variations and addresses them to achieve its high accuracy. It uses location-clustering techniques to reduce the computational requirements of the algorithm. The lightweight Horus algorithm helps in supporting a larger number of users by running the algorithm at the clients.We discuss the different components of the Horus system and its implementation under two different operating systems and evaluate the performance of the Horus system on two testbeds. Our results show that the Horus system achieves its goal. It has an error of less than 0.6 meter on the average and its computational requirements are more than an order of magnitude better than other WLAN location determination systems. Moreover, the techniques developed in the context of the Horus system are general and can be applied to other WLAN location determination systems to enhance their accuracy. We also report lessons learned from experimenting with the Horus system and provide directions for future work.
1,631 citations
"Location Fingerprinting With Blueto..." refers background in this paper
...Here the focus is on radio positioning, specifically using the empirical fingerprinting techniques [3], [15], [17], [22] that avoid the need to model the complex radio propagation environment indoors by patternmatching to a previously surveyed map of radio signal strengths....
[...]
TL;DR: It is concluded that PDR techniques alone can offer good short- to medium- term tracking under certain circumstances, but that regular absolute position fixes from partner systems will be needed to ensure long-term operation and to cope with unexpected behaviours.
Abstract: With the continual miniaturisation of sensors and processing nodes, Pedestrian Dead Reckoning (PDR) systems are becoming feasible options for indoor tracking. These use inertial and other sensors, often combined with domain-specific knowledge about walking, to track user movements. There is currently a wealth of relevant literature spread across different research communities. In this survey, a taxonomy of modern PDRs is developed and used to contextualise the contributions from different areas. Techniques for step detection, characterisation, inertial navigation and step-and-heading-based dead-reckoning are reviewed and compared. Techniques that incorporate building maps through particle filters are analysed, along with hybrid systems that use absolute position fixes to correct dead-reckoning output. In addition, consideration is given to the possibility of using smartphones as PDR sensing devices. The survey concludes that PDR techniques alone can offer good short- to medium- term tracking under certain circumstances, but that regular absolute position fixes from partner systems will be needed to ensure long-term operation and to cope with unexpected behaviours. It concludes by identifying a detailed list of challenges for PDR researchers.
749 citations
"Location Fingerprinting With Blueto..." refers background in this paper
...fingerprints with other sources to form hybrid systems, many of which are based on the idea of Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) [10], [16] being applied to pedestrian dead reckoning [13]....
[...]
01 Feb 2000
TL;DR: This paper analyzes shortcomings of the basic system, develops and evaluates solutions to address these shortcomings, and describes several new enhancements, including a novel access point-based environmental profiling scheme, and a Viterbi-like algorithm for continuous user tracking and disambiguation of candidate user locations.
Abstract: We address the problem of locating users inside buildings using a radio-frequency (RF) wireless LAN. A previous paper presented the basic design and a limited evaluation of a user-location system we have developed. In this paper, we analyze shortcomings of the basic system, and develop and evaluate solutions to address these shortcomings. Additionally, we describe several new enhancements, including a novel access point-based environmental profiling scheme, and a Viterbi-like algorithm for continuous user tracking and disambiguation of candidate user locations. Using extensive data collected from our deployment, we evaluate our system’s performance over multiple wireless LAN technologies and in different buildings on our campus. We also discuss significant practical issues that arise in implementing such a system. Our techniques are implemented purely in software and are easily deployable over a standard wireless LAN.
608 citations
01 Jun 2010
TL;DR: NTP version 4 (NTPv4), which is backwards compatible with NTP version 3 (N TPv3), described in RFC 1305, as well as previous versions of the protocol, are described.
Abstract: The Network Time Protocol (NTP) is widely used to synchronize computer
clocks in the Internet. This document describes NTP version 4 (NTPv4),
which is backwards compatible with NTP version 3 (NTPv3), described in
RFC 1305, as well as previous versions of the protocol. NTPv4 includes
a modified protocol header to accommodate the Internet Protocol
version 6 address family. NTPv4 includes fundamental improvements in
the mitigation and discipline algorithms that extend the potential
accuracy to the tens of microseconds with modern workstations and fast
LANs. It includes a dynamic server discovery scheme, so that in many
cases, specific server configuration is not required. It corrects
certain errors in the NTPv3 design and implementation and includes an
optional extension mechanism. [STANDARDS-TRACK]
605 citations
"Location Fingerprinting With Blueto..." refers methods in this paper
...Before each experiment, each clock was manually synchronized using a Network Time Protocol (NTP) server [20]....
[...]