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
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TL;DR: A series of techniques that enhance a probabilistic localization algorithm that utilizes mobile device inertial sensors and Received Signal Strength (RSS) from Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons are presented.
61 citations
Cites background or methods from "Location Fingerprinting With Blueto..."
...While the characteristics of BLE fingerprints and WiFi fingerprints are different [15], handling delay in reported BLE RSS values on a smartphone is also essential to improve the localization performance, especially when a user is moving....
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...Our method assumes that BLE beacons are installed densely in the environment, similar to [15]....
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...As an alternative, Bluetooth-based localization has gained prominence following the introduction of the Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) protocol standard and the commercialization of off-the-shelf BLE beacons [27, 15, 28]....
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...Among various indoor localization techniques, localization based on the RSS of wireless signals such as WiFi or Bluetooth is one of the most popular approaches [8, 13, 1, 14, 15] due to its use of off-the-shelf mobile devices, potential for high accuracy, and relatively low infrastructure cost....
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05 Jul 2016
TL;DR: One of these methods used for indoor positioning, i.e., weighted centroid localization (WCL) using received signal strength indicator (RSSI) observed from neighboring BLE beacons is discussed.
Abstract: There has been an upward trend in the requirement of indoor positioning systems using bluetooth low energy (BLE), Wi-Fi, and visible light communication. In order to realize the indoor positioning with these communication systems, techniques such as fingerprinting, trilateration, and triangulation have been widely studied. Even though fingerprinting has been chosen as a representative approach in many literatures, it is known as tedious and time consuming method due to the long-time location learning phase. Therefore, the fingerprinting is expected to be integrated with other methods to enhance the location accuracy and reduce the location estimation procedures. In this work, we discuss one of these methods used for indoor positioning, i.e., weighted centroid localization (WCL) using received signal strength indicator (RSSI) observed from neighboring BLE beacons. The WCL is evaluated in our testbed building and analyzed to configure its parameters for indoor positioning.
60 citations
Cites methods from "Location Fingerprinting With Blueto..."
...Also, another fingerprinting example with BLE has been demonstrated in [4] using various beacons densities....
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TL;DR: The experimental results demonstrate that the beacons deployed based on the proposed deployment strategy results in greater localization accuracy, and the HTF approach performs better than the other commonly used localization methods.
Abstract: Wi-Fi-based localization using received signal strength (RSS) with pedestrian dead reckoning (PDR) algorithm is widely used to track pedestrians in indoor environments. However, the unsatisfactory deployment of Wi-Fi access points (APs) in buildings and the unstable performance of PDR are still key problems that lead to low localization accuracy. In this paper, we make contributions on proposing a hybrid Wi-Fi and Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) indoor localization system (ILS) based on an efficient BLE deployment strategy and hierarchical topological fingerprinting (HTF). For the BLE deployment strategy, we deploy BLE beacons in places that do not have clear Wi-Fi signals for localization. This efficiently increases the localization accuracy. For HTF, we hierarchically localize targets based on a topological fingerprint (TF) map. First of all, we quickly localize the room in which the target is located by Dendogram-based support vector machine (DSVM). Then, the specific position of the target is estimated by fusing Wi-Fi and BLE signals with the TF map. The new BLE-based fingerprinting algorithm is used to localize targets in environments sparsely populated by BLE beacons. We conduct physical experiments in a real building. The experimental results demonstrate that the beacons deployed based on our proposed deployment strategy results in greater localization accuracy. Furthermore, the HTF approach performs better than the other commonly used localization methods.
57 citations
Cites background from "Location Fingerprinting With Blueto..."
...a few months to a year, can be deployed in buildings with high density and low cost [16]....
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01 Dec 2016
TL;DR: The experimental results indicate that combining BLE with machine learning is certainly promising as the basis for occupancy estimation in an indoor environment, and three machine learning approaches are employed to determine the presence of occupants inside specific areas of an office space.
Abstract: A reliable estimation of an area's occupancy can be beneficial to a large variety of applications, and especially in relation to emergency management. For example, it can help detect areas of priority and assign emergency personnel in an efficient manner. However, occupancy detection can be a major challenge in indoor environments. A recent technology that can prove very useful in that respect is Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), which is able to provide the location of a user using information from beacons installed in a building. Here, we evaluate BLE as the primary means of occupancy estimation in an indoor environment, using a prototype system composed of BLE beacons, a mobile application and a server. We employ three machine learning approaches (k-nearest neighbours, logistic regression and support vector machines) to determine the presence of occupants inside specific areas of an office space and we evaluate our approach in two independent experimental settings. Our experimental results indicate that combining BLE with machine learning is certainly promising as the basis for occupancy estimation
57 citations
Additional excerpts
...They use a dense BLE beacon distribution and have achieved tracking accuracy of less than 2.6m for 95% of the time....
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TL;DR: In this article, a mobile application is developed along with three Bayesian filtering techniques to improve the BLE beacon proximity estimation accuracy, including a Kalman filter, a particle filter, and a nonparametric information (NI) filter.
Abstract: The interconnectedness of all things is continuously expanding which has allowed every individual to increase their level of interaction with their surroundings. Internet of Things (IoT) devices are used in a plethora of context-aware application, such as proximity-based services (PBSs), and location-based services (LBSs). For these systems to perform, it is essential to have reliable hardware and predict a user’s position in the area with high accuracy in order to differentiate between individuals in a small area. A variety of wireless solutions that utilize received signal strength indicators (RSSIs) have been proposed to provide PBS and LBS for indoor environments, though each solution presents its own drawbacks. In this article, Bluetooth low energy (BLE) beacons are examined in terms of their accuracy in proximity estimation. Specifically, a mobile application is developed along with three Bayesian filtering techniques to improve the BLE beacon proximity estimation accuracy. This includes a Kalman filter, a particle filter, and a nonparametric information (NI) filter. Since the RSSI is heavily influenced by the environment, experiments were conducted to examine the performance of beacons from three popular vendors in two different environments. The error is compared in terms of mean absolute error (MAE) and root mean squared error (RMSE). According to the experimental results, Bayesian filters can improve proximity estimation accuracy up to 30% in comparison with traditional filtering, when the beacon and the receiver are within 3 m.
56 citations
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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