Indoor Location Breaking Through
April 17, 2013
What It Could Mean for High-Precision Users Indoor location research and fielded developments currently focus on consumer-level applications, […]
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What It Could Mean for High-Precision Users Indoor location research and fielded developments currently focus on consumer-level applications, […]
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Apple has acquired indoor-location company WiFiSLAM. Apple reportedly paid about $20 […]
New technology from product development firm Cambridge Consultants can accurately detect someone’s location indoors when GPS drops out. […]
Ruckus Wireless, Inc. today outlined its SmartCell architecture for creating carrier class Wi-Fi networks to deal with the […]
Get out of the way, GPS. Wi-Fi is elbowing in on the location game. Wi-Fi operators are tracking […]
Everyone wants a piece of the pie, the upcoming indoor location pie. Big companies and start-ups are engaged, some in research, others having launched solutions. While Wi-Fi is the most common technology, many companies are pursuing alternate methods, including GPS, audio, Bluetooth, small cell/cellular, distributed antenna systems (DAS), near field communication (NFC), white band, sensors, movement tracking, beacons, and more. Of the large players who are making a play for the indoor market, Cisco, Google, Microsoft, Motorola, Nokia, Qualcomm, RIM, and TCS are the furthest along, reports Grizzly Analytics.
A range of solutions are vying to replicate what GPS does outdoors in an indoor environment, from Wi-Fi to Bluetooth to “terrestrial” GPS, plus many others. Which one is likely to be successful? IMS Research (recently acquired by IHS Inc.) said the answer will not simply be just “one.” Locating a smartphone in an outdoors environment is straightforward, with more than 90 percent of smartphones providing GPS functionality. However, GPS becomes less useful in built-up areas and can be useless indoors, reports IMS Research.
In the next two to four years, mobile device location platforms will be able to provide positioning performance that enables emergency call (E911) and location-based services (LBS) with excellent accuracy (5–10 meters) in all locations. We call this accurate everywhere location, and it will be a significant enabler of indoor navigation applications and for even wider adoption of consumer LBS.
In fact, we may eventually forget how we ever lived without it. This technology can enhance our lives by enabling our mobile devices to know precisely where we are at all times. Armed with this information, our devices can behave in a way that suits our specific situation, and they can do this without us having to do anything other than keep the phone with us.
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