Infrastructure-free indoor navigation: a case study

Abstract

In this article, we describe a low-cost indoor navigation system, based on the capabilities of modern smartphones commonly equipped with accelerometer, gyroscope, camera and Internet connection. The main claim of this paper is that, relaxing the requirement of best accuracy, with an intelligent use of inertial sensors, digital maps, and ambient tagging, it is still possible to get good results. Our mobile application helps the user in retrieving directions and finding places in large indoor environments where the global positioning system (GPS) is not available, such as airports, hospitals, museums and so on. The goal is to get a system able to work without the use of any physical ad hoc infrastructure and without relying on any wearable device. We name our infrastructure-free system Roodin, and its features are as follows: user-friendly interface, quick install and calibration tool, point-of-interest search and guidance. All the features presented in this paper are designed and implemented, and the application has been evaluated with real users. A summary of user evaluation is reported in the paper.

Keywords::

• indoor navigation
• location based computing
• mobile computing
• Bayesian algorithms
• user trials

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.