How Phones Will be Able to Guide Your Every Movement, Indoor and Outdoor!
If you want to know where you are during a hike or a long walk, then you can simply check an app on any GPS-enabled device to get a fix on your position. GPS uses 'global positioning satellites' in order to bounce signals off of satellites, thereby triangulating your location. GPS has near-limitless applications and makes navigating significantly simpler.
However, Indoor location systems (AKA indoor positioning systems AKA IPS) are a little different. These systems fill the gap left by GPS by allowing similar indoor functionalities. While GPS is highly effective, its use is limited to outdoor scenarios due to limitations with signals (walls and roofs can easily block signals, while reflective surfaces can cause problems too) as well as insufficient accuracy. The very best GPS systems will still only be able to pinpoint a location within 4 meters.
Indoor GPS has countless potential uses. This includes military applications, emergency response, virtual reality systems and navigation within supermarkets and other retail stores. Right now, GPS guidance tends to abruptly cease functioning the moment you walk inside a retail store. Imagine a world where you can get guidance around museums, where you can find your friends in concert halls or where firefighters can locate victims trapped inside burning buildings. Just how far are we?
Current IPS Solutions
Early attempts at IPS largely revolved around the use of RFID (Radio Frequency Identification Tags) and 'inertial measurement'. Inertial measurement involves the use of gyroscopes and accelerometers in order to track an individual's movements. The downside is that it is only effective when the starting location of that person is known. This is still handy in military settings, where there may be no opportunity to install beacons within a location and the latest technology from DARPA is a chip smaller than a coin.
These options are generally not suitable for commercial use, but several other solutions have made their way to the commercial market. Among the most popular, is the use of WiFi hotspots, which work by calculating the strength of known WiFi sources in order to pinpoint a location. Unfortunately, this method is limited due to the lack of available WiFi sources and the many factors that can impact signal strength.
Other technologies rely on LED light fixtures or even magnetic fields to determine a location. Providers include the likes of ByteLight, which uses LED installations read by phone cameras. This process is less 'passive', as it requires the user to actively scan the light fixture and send the information away in order to get a response.
Bluetooth for Indoor Positioning Systems
One of the most effective solutions for these settings involves the use of Bluetooth beacons. Bluetooth beacons act like GPS satellites and communicate with any smartphone or other GPS-enabled device. Bluetooth beacons can be stuck to walls or ceilings of airports, museums, shopping malls and other indoor locations and allow visitors to find their way around via provided apps (most IPS require a map of some form). This allows visitors to save time and enjoy a more efficient trip. At the same time, it is effective for retailers as it can increase turnover and customer satisfaction. Ultimately, commercial demand is what drives technology to move forward.
Pointr, for example, is one indoor positioning system that, embedded through an SDK into the venues app, is able to provide turn-by-turn navigation to lead users directly to specific locations within a building. This is possible not by Bluetooth beacons, but by utilizing the compass built into most smartphones. The company's recent partnership with solar provider GCell has enabled further development. Network Rail, which owns and operates the railway infrastructure in England, Wales and Scotland, has recently allowed the use of solar-powered Bluetooth beacons around the Liverpool Street tube station in London. These systems are capable of being powered by any available light source - even LED lights. The system is not open for public access yet. However, it represents a big step as the beacons, retrofitted throughout the whole station, provide indoor positioning and navigation to certain areas. They can also capture and transmit data, which is useful for future analytics in order to improve the customers' journeys. Last but not least, these solar-powered Bluetooth beacons will never need to be changed.
The Future of Indoor Tracking
While current solutions offer many different functionalities, they largely require the use of pre-installed systems of some nature. Given the many possibilities for this industry, companies like Google and Microsoft are racing to find more flexible answers. Likewise, we might one day see 'inside out' positional tracking used in experimental augmented reality headsets and Google's own Project Tango making their way to location systems. This would rely on 'computer vision' to analyze images from a camera and calculate a location based on that information.
It is generally known that the best method will be a form of 'hybrid' that utilizes several different solutions in a synergistic manner. Whatever the case, this is likely to become an increasingly important subject and one that will receive more attention. The next time you get lost at a train station could be your last.