Scaling Indoor Positioning : improving accuracy and privacy of indoor positioning

Abstract: Our phones have many uses for positioning technologies, such as navigation, LocationBased Services (LBS), emergency positioning, fitness applications, and advertising. We trust our phones and wearables to be location-aware. However, as soon as we enter a building, we can no longer use GPS signals, as their already weak signals are well below the background noise of the environment. This requires us to develop alternatives, such as installing active radio beacons, using existing radio infrastructure, applying environmental sensing based on barometric pressure and magnetic fields, or utilizing Inertial Measurement Units (IMUs) to estimate the user location. This licentiate thesis aims to evaluate beacon-based indoor positioning, where we assume installing a set of small battery-powered Bluetooth low-energy (BLE) beacons are possible. In particular, the thesis addresses essential factors such as installation effort, accuracy, the privacy aspects of an Indoor Positioning System(IPS), and mitigation of accuracy issues related to radio signal shadowing in complex indoor environments. The goal is to solve some obstacles to the widespread adoption of indoor positioning solutions.