Indoor Location Tracking Systems

What is an indoor location tracking system?

Indoor location tracking system locates and tracks the movement of people or objects inside buildings. Indoor location tracking is enabled by indoor positioning systems, a network of electronic devices and computer software used to locate people or objects where and when GPS is inaccurate or fails completely. Furthermore, the accuracy of the GPS is often times less than what’s required to track objects indoors. Although the terms “indoor location tracking” and “indoor positioning” are interchangeable, there are currently many different types of technologies used to calculate and provide real-time location data.

In this blog post, we’ll talk about the changing world of indoor location tracking systems, delve into the countless applications in the industry, uncover the benefits they bring, and speculate on the exciting future prospects of indoor location tracking systems.

How do indoor location tracking systems work?

Indoor location tracking systems, also known as indoor positioning systems (IPS) detect and track object location using a variety of sensors. IPS normally uses transmitters (e.g. tags, badges) and receivers (e.g. beacons)  to provide precise location information for tracked assets. Transmitters identify people or assets and can be attached, embedded, or worn. Receivers capture signals from transmitters and send the data to the central management system. These systems are widely used across various industries to track personnel, valuable equipment, materials, and vehicles.

GPS and IPS services are sometimes mixed up due to similar tasks and acronyms. GPS works best outdoors, relying on satellites for location. Indoors, GPS signals are unreliable and lack precision in crowded spaces. Ongoing research may bring new indoor GPS options in the future.

Technologies Used in Indoor Location Tracking Systems

An indoor positioning system helps find people or objects inside a building. It has two main parts: anchors and position tags. Anchors, like beacons or relays, are placed strategically around the premises. People or things carry position tags. Anchors actively locate these tags or provide location/context information for the device.

There are different ways to track objects indoors: Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), Wi-Fi, Magnetic Field Detection, Near Field Communication (NFC), Ultra-wideband (UWB) radio, and UHF RFID. Each method has its own level of accuracy, cost, power usage, and ease of use. Since there’s no obvious best choice, sometimes it’s difficult to determine which technology is most suitable. Let’s look at the most common options.

• Bluetooth Based Indoor Positioning

Bluetooth based indoor positioning is a really promising technology for expanding indoor tracking in various fields, such as logistics, healthcare, manufacturing, retail, warehouses, and smart buildings.

Bluetooth proves to be a highly effective choice for indoor localization, offering real-time meter-level accuracy with cost-effective and power-efficient hardware. Its simplified deployment is due to technological standardization, ensuring cross-vendor device compatibility. The widespread adoption of Bluetooth in existing devices further contributes to its ease of use, making it a versatile solution for diverse applications such as logistics, healthcare, manufacturing, retail, warehouses, and smart buildings.

BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) IPS solution uses beacons or sensors to locate and detect transmitting Bluetooth devices such as track labels, and smartphones throughout the indoor area. Location data obtained from sensors or sent from beacons to mobile devices is then absorbed by various applications and translated into insights that support multiple location-aware use cases.

Bluetooth based solution supports two architectures, one based on the radio signal’s angle of arrival at the anchor point, the other based on its angle of departure.

In AoA based scenario, a mobile device has a tag that sends a Bluetooth signal with direction information. Antenna arrays measure these signals to find the angle of arrival using a network-based engine. The slight phase differences in the signals received by antennas help calculate the angle of arrival.

With AoD, a mobile device receives Bluetooth signals from antenna arrays. The device uses signal measurements to find the direction from which the signal departs the antenna array. The slight phase differences in signals received help calculate the angle of departure given the antenna array geometry is known.

To pinpoint a mobile device indoors, a single anchor with multiple antennas can be used to figure out its location relative to the anchor. For higher accuracy, multiple stationary anchors with multi-antenna arrays are employed. By triangulating signals from several anchors and finding their intersection, the exact position of the device can be calculated.

• Ultra-wideband (UWB) indoor positioning

UWB uses a train of impulses instead of a modulated sine wave to transmit information. It’s perfect for precision applications because of its unique characteristic. Since the pulse rising edge is extremely sharp it allows the receiver to accurately measure the arrival time of the signal. Furthermore, the pulses are extremely narrow, usually lasting less than two nanoseconds.

The signals’ nature allows UWB pulses to be resistant to multipath effects and be identified even in noisy environments. UWB has significant ranging capability advantages over traditional narrowband signals due to these traits. Also, due to the strict spectral mask, the transmit power lies at the noise floor, which means that UWB does not interfere with other radio communication systems operating in the same frequency bands. It just increases the overall noise floor, a principle that is very similar to spread spectrum technologies (CDMA).

• Wi-Fi indoor positioning

The use of Wi-Fi can enable the detection and tracking of people, devices, and assets. Indoor positioning can be easily calculated using existing Wi-Fi access points. Wi-Fi can be found everywhere, particularly indoors, used by nearly all wireless devices and network infrastructures – including smartphones, computers, IoT devices, routers, APs, and more. To detect and locate Wi-Fi transmitters, such as smartphones and tracking tags, Wi-Fi indoor positioning solutions employ existing Wi-Fi access points or Wi-Fi enabled sensors. WI-Fi-based positioning systems can use different methods to determine the location of the devices.

Wi-Fi Positioning Using Access Points: Access points are installed indoors to locate devices and use already existing Wi-Fi infrastructure. Transmissions from nearby Wi-Fi devices, both on and off the network, can be detected by building APs. The location data is sent to a server and central IPS which are used to determine the position of a device.

Wi-Fi Positioning Using Sensors: Sensors that are deployed in fixed position indoors passively detect and locate transmissions from smartphones, asset tracking tags and other Wi-Fi devices. The sensor’s collected location information is then transmitted to a server and incorporated by the central indoor positioning system (IPS).

Wi-Fi positioning methods often rely on the Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) to figure out where the device is located. In applications using RSSI, several Wi-Fi access points, set in fixed positions, pick up signals from transmitting Wi-Fi devices and measure the strength of those signals. The location engine then uses multilateration algorithms to analyze this data and estimate the position of the transmitting devices.

Indoor Location Tracking Benefits

• Enhanced User Convenience

This system expands the comfort of the users in indoor areas, for example, thanks to IPS, users no longer need to indicate their current location, when moving from one point to another in the indoors. Also, they no longer need to worry about doors, turns or other obstacles, because now they can see them in advance on the map in real-time. Modern day warehouses are like complex living organisms with rapidly moving machinery, products, robots, and personnel. Real-time tracking of the locations of the moving pieces is necessary for efficient and effective functioning on a minute-by-minute basis.

In an application developed by Tauro Technologies used UWB radio based solution to assist firefighters and first-responders on the scene during an incident. Fast, accurate decisions can save lives, keep the first-responders safe and are dependent on accurate real-time information to make mission critical split second decisions. Tauro Technologies developed the hardware and triangulation software system for indoor location tracking to meet those requirements.

• Exclusion of possible human errors

Asset tracking also eliminates potential human errors. People can often get tired or have a lapse in judgment and accidentally misplace valuable assets or leave a highly sensitive location unstaffed. Indoor location tracking systems can provide alerts when people or assets leave a predefined area also known as geofencing. Users can opt to receive an email, text or voice notification if someone or something enters or leaves the area.

• Swift Incident Response

Indoor location tracking ensures the safety by providing real-time location data during emergencies. Lone workers, when out of communication, can trigger assistance requests, allowing security and emergency services to pinpoint their exact location. Leadership can identify the nearest security officers to a reported incident and efficiently direct them for intervention.

• Location-based marketing

The fusion of indoor navigation and positioning creates location-based marketing opportunities. Imagine tailoring a more personalized experience and special offers when shoppers linger at the pasta aisle or greet stadium visitors with personalized messages based on ticket sales data. This not only enhances user engagement but also increases revenue and profits. Offering marketing opportunities through push notifications to exhibitors, sponsors, or partners makes your venue more appealing and has the potential to boost your ROI.

Indoor Location Tracking Use Cases

The indoor positioning system is a reliable and convenient modern solution that can be used in various positioning solutions such as Asset tracking​, Item finding, Point of interest (POI) information, access control and security, people tracking and consumer behavior analysis, proximity marketing.

Below are some examples of indoor positioning system applications:

• Airport and Hospitality: Airports and hotels can track heavy equipment, tools, passenger baggage and visitors to improve daily operations, increase safety, and increase customer satisfaction.
• Medical Institutions and Healthcare: High-quality healthcare services allow patients to get the treatments they need without potentially harmful delays. By using this technology, staff, patients, and equipment like beds and wheelchairs can be easily located. It means better attendance checking, effective supervision, and better equipment maintenance are at your fingertips.
• Parking: Indoor location systems can be used to guide drivers to available parking spaces in indoor parking garages or lots.
• Warehouse: Real-time package location, inventory monitoring, and forklift high-precision positioning bring valuable information into the ERP and provide reliability and safety into warehouses.
• Museum: Mobile navigation, precise positioning, and low-cost tags bring new values to tourism location services. IPS can be used to enhance the visitor experience in museums by providing location-based information and interactive exhibits.

Challenges of Indoor Location Tracking Systems

Indoor navigation presents typical challenges in contrast to outdoor environments, where GPS technology is prevalent. The complex task of indoor positioning is made worse by the building layouts, which require specialized solutions to address the unique intricacies of navigating within enclosed spaces.

Here are some representations of the challenges of Indoor Location Tracking Systems and their solutions:

• Complex Building Layouts

Challenge: Large public places are often complicated with many floors, making it hard to keep track of and update the tracking information. These places change a lot due to renovations or temporary setups, so we need navigation systems that can adapt quickly in real-time.

Solution: Employing indoor mapping tools that facilitate collaboration and crowd-sourced mapping can play a crucial role in preserving accurate and current layouts. These tools empower users and venue owners to actively participate in the mapping process, guaranteeing the continued relevance and precision of the navigation system.

• Signal Interference

Challenge: In areas with high device density, the abundance of devices and wireless networks may cause signal interference. Such interference can compromise the reliability of indoor positioning technologies, leading to navigation inaccuracies and inconsistencies.

Solution: Implement machine learning techniques to filter noise and interference, enhancing indoor tracking performance. By combining machine learning with BLE and UWB technologies, an adaptive and interference-resistant solution can be achieved, significantly improving indoor tracking performance in challenging environments.

• Battery Consumption

Challenge: Indoor navigation apps often drain device batteries quickly, posing an issue for users without easy access to charging.

Solution: Optimizing the indoor navigation app’s energy consumption is crucial. Developers should focus on reducing unnecessary background processes and utilizing efficient programming techniques. Additionally, incorporating low-power mode options can help extend device battery life while using the navigation application.

Conclusion

Tauro Technologies’ experience in RF communications, power management as well as firmware and software design enables the development of reliable and energy efficient location tracking systems. Tauro Technologies has experience in a wide variety of applications including military, scientific, medical, industrial robotics, and communications. Get in touch with us for more information.