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AbstractA Catalan non-profit Foundation (Spain) is working on mobile user indoor position and navigation based on commercial wireless technology using near real-time radio-map techniques for location and navigation-based services and applications. Hybridisation of wireless technologies with GNSS signals to achieve seamless indoor/outdoor positioning and navigation is also under research. This Technology Center is looking for industrial partners for technical cooperation.DetailsThe interest in Location Based Services (LBS) has experienced a considerable growth in recent years. LBS can be defined as many different services that strongly depend upon the user’s location and situation, and so positioning is a crucial input for these applications. However, current positioning systems still offer low accuracy solutions or do not provide seamless navigation where services could be offered continuously, independently of the user being situated outside or inside a building, through a heterogeneous network. Indoor positioning is a challenge still to be solved.Since its foundation focused part of its R&D effort on the hybridisation of indoor and outdoor positioning and navigation technologies. Part of this research yielded a set of algorithmic techniques for near-real time position estimation and tracking of mobile users in indoor scenarios. These algorithms are based on fingerprint techniques consisting of a mapping of the received RF signal’s strength indication (RSSI) of the available WiFi APs (Access Points) in the area of interest. Tracking is supported by the Particle Filter technique, which uses a motion model to smooth the user path. The system was tested in a real scenario through experimental positioning trials. The implemented method is suitable for any type of Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) and does not need any dedicated infrastructure to run. The first results obtained for this research line were presented in NAVITEC 2008 – 4th ESA Workshop on Satellite Navigation User Equipment Technologies. Innovative Aspects: Innovative Aspects The extensive use of wireless technology by private and public users makes available everywhere a vast amount of WiFi APs (Access Points) whose received RF signal’s strength can be used as source for a localization motor with no need of dedicated infrastructure. Free open source software was used in order to avoid high development and deployment costs as well as for the wide community of users participating in the maintenance, improvement and enhancement of software. Main Advantages Deployment-free localization system due to the wide use of Wireless communications networks. Moreover, the final software architecture achieved so far eases the implementation in any mobile device up to the point that it could be downloaded as an application for a given device in a WLAN making it suitable for mass markets.
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