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.
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TL;DR: The overall field sensor impairments and an additive Gaussian noise model superposing the magnetic field are mathematically described and a novel calibration scheme is presented and a statistically optimal localization procedure coping with the field sensor nonidealities is developed.
Abstract: Magnetic local positioning systems are a well-suited candidate for reliable indoor positioning systems, as they are robust against blocking by dielectric materials like walls or people. The system presented in this paper is implemented with a one-axis magnetic transmitter and several three-axis field sensors connected to a complete sensor network. Unfortunately, the performance of the system is severely impaired by field sensor nonidealities such as magnetic coupling of the sensor coils, coil misalignment, field sensor rotation, and unsynchronized sampling. In this paper, the overall field sensor impairments and an additive Gaussian noise model superposing the magnetic field are mathematically described. Then, a novel calibration scheme for the overall field sensor nonidealities is presented. Furthermore, a statistically optimal localization procedure coping with the field sensor nonidealities is developed. The proposed novel localization and calibration algorithms are demonstrated in a common office environment with a size of 7 m ${\times }\,\,5$ m ${\times }$ 3 m. Thereby, the calibration impressively reduces the position root-mean-square error (RMSE) from 46.8 to 10.6 cm and the angle RMSE from 24.8° to 6.1°.
29 citations
Cites methods from "Location Fingerprinting With Blueto..."
...Examples for RF positioning systems are narrowband RF systems that used WLAN [7], Zigbee [8], and Bluetooth [9], ultra-wideband systems (UWB) such as pulse radar [10], cellular-based systems [11], and radio-frequency identification (RFID [12]....
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12 Jul 2017
TL;DR: In this paper, a series of post-processing filters are used to enhance the outcome of the estimated position applying trilateration as the main and straightforward technique to locate someone within a building.
Abstract: While the Global Positioning System (GPS) tends to be not useful anymore in terms of precise localization once one gets into a building, Low Energy beacons might come in handy instead. Navigating free of signal reception problems throughout a building when one has never visited that place before is a challenge tackled with indoors localization. Using Bluetooth Low Energy1 (BLE) beacons (either iBeacon or Eddystone formats) is the medium to accomplish that. Indeed, different purpose oriented applications can be designed, developed and shaped towards the needs of any person in the context of a certain building. This work presents a series of post-processing filters to enhance the outcome of the estimated position applying trilateration as the main and straightforward technique to locate someone within a building. A later evaluation tries to give enough evidence around the feasibility of this indoor localization technique. A mobile app should be everything a user would need to have within a building in order to navigate inside.
29 citations
Cites background from "Location Fingerprinting With Blueto..."
...of study where an offline training is carried out (building a fingerprint database) immediately followed by an online estimate of a given object’s position matching the closest fingerprint previously computed [6] [7] [8] [9]....
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06 Oct 2020
TL;DR: In this paper, a machine learning-based approach was proposed to reliably detect subjects that have spent enough time in close proximity to be at risk of being infected with the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.
Abstract: Digital contact tracing approaches based on Bluetooth low energy (BLE) have the potential to efficiently contain and delay outbreaks of infectious diseases such as the ongoing SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. In this work we propose a machine learning based approach to reliably detect subjects that have spent enough time in close proximity to be at risk of being infected. Our study is an important proof of concept that will aid the battery of epidemiological policies aiming to slow down the rapid spread of COVID-19.
29 citations
TL;DR: This work proposes a notification and alert management system called PRISER that focuses on user profiles and environments, applying data privacy criteria, and develops a management system and notification controls.
Abstract: With the growing number of mobile devices receiving daily notifications, it is necessary to manage the variety of information produced. New smart devices are developed every day with the ability to generate, send, and display messages about their status, data, and information about other devices. Consequently, the number of notifications received by a user is increasing and their tolerance may decrease in a short time. With this, it is necessary to develop a management system and notification controls. In this context, this work proposes a notification and alert management system called PRISER. Its focus is on user profiles and environments, applying data privacy criteria.
29 citations
TL;DR: This paper proposes design principles for an ambient light energy harvesting BLE beacon capable of perpetual operation in the indoor environment and proves that the design can operate perpetually under 40 lux light intensity, and can last over 17 h once fully charged.
Abstract: The maturing deployment of the Internet of Things is gradually realizing new smart applications that strongly leverage recent advances in proximity detection methods. To this end, Bluetooth low energy (BLE) beacons are one of the preferred candidates because of the widespread use of Bluetooth-enabled devices. However, traditional battery-powered BLE beacons suffer from a limited operation lifetime, inducing additional maintenance operations and costs. This paper addresses this issue by proposing design principles for an ambient light energy harvesting BLE beacon capable of perpetual operation in the indoor environment. The contributions made in this paper include: 1) investigation and modeling of related hardware components, namely the BLE beacon, photovoltaic panel, and capacitor; 2) design principles for selecting hardware components subject to varying environmental conditions and application requirements; and 3) prototyping and field-tests to prove its practicality. Through multiple experiments, this paper proves that the design can operate perpetually under 40 lux light intensity, and can last over 17 h once fully charged.
29 citations
Cites background from "Location Fingerprinting With Blueto..."
...as museums [14], homes [15], and offices [16], [17], wireless sensor nodes are mainly deployed in outdoor places for data collecting purposes [18], [19]....
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...Faragher and Harle [16] and Priyantha et al. [22] studied the use of BLE beacons for RSS-based localization....
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...Faragher and Harle [16] and Priyantha et al....
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References
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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]....
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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....
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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]....
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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]....
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