Editorial

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Open AccessEditorial

Sensors for Indoor Mapping and Navigation

by Kourosh Khoshelham and Sisi Zlatanova

Sensors 2016, 16(5), 655; https://doi.org/10.3390/s16050655 - 09 May 2016

Cited by 25 | Viewed by 8918

With the growth of cities and increased urban population there is a growing demand for spatial information of large indoor environments.[...] Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Indoor Mapping and Navigation)

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5096 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Human Collaborative Localization and Mapping in Indoor Environments with Non-Continuous Stereo

by Edmundo Guerra, Rodrigo Munguia, Yolanda Bolea and Antoni Grau

Sensors 2016, 16(3), 275; https://doi.org/10.3390/s16030275 - 24 Feb 2016

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 5193

Abstract

A new approach to the monocular simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) problem is presented in this work. Data obtained from additional bearing-only sensors deployed as wearable devices is fully fused into an Extended Kalman Filter (EKF). The wearable device is introduced in the [...] Read more.

A new approach to the monocular simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) problem is presented in this work. Data obtained from additional bearing-only sensors deployed as wearable devices is fully fused into an Extended Kalman Filter (EKF). The wearable device is introduced in the context of a collaborative task within a human-robot interaction (HRI) paradigm, including the SLAM problem. Thus, based on the delayed inverse-depth feature initialization (DI-D) SLAM, data from the camera deployed on the human, capturing his/her field of view, is used to enhance the depth estimation of the robotic monocular sensor which maps and locates the device. The occurrence of overlapping between the views of both cameras is predicted through geometrical modelling, activating a pseudo-stereo methodology which allows to instantly measure the depth by stochastic triangulation of matched points found through SIFT/SURF. Experimental validation is provided through results from experiments, where real data is captured as synchronized sequences of video and other data (relative pose of secondary camera) and processed off-line. The sequences capture indoor trajectories representing the main challenges for a monocular SLAM approach, namely, singular trajectories and close turns with high angular velocities with respect to linear velocities. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Indoor Mapping and Navigation)

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Open AccessArticle

A Time-Aware Routing Map for Indoor Evacuation

by Haifeng Zhao and Stephan Winter

Sensors 2016, 16(1), 112; https://doi.org/10.3390/s16010112 - 18 Jan 2016

Cited by 21 | Viewed by 5813

Abstract

Knowledge of dynamic environments expires over time. Thus, using static maps of the environment for decision making is problematic, especially in emergency situations, such as evacuations. This paper suggests a fading memory model for mapping dynamic environments: a mechanism to put less trust [...] Read more.

Knowledge of dynamic environments expires over time. Thus, using static maps of the environment for decision making is problematic, especially in emergency situations, such as evacuations. This paper suggests a fading memory model for mapping dynamic environments: a mechanism to put less trust on older knowledge in decision making. The model has been assessed by simulating indoor evacuations, adopting and comparing various strategies in decision making. Results suggest that fading memory generally improves this decision making. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Indoor Mapping and Navigation)

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Open AccessArticle

The Performance Analysis of the Map-Aided Fuzzy Decision Tree Based on the Pedestrian Dead Reckoning Algorithm in an Indoor Environment

by Kai-Wei Chiang, Jhen-Kai Liao, Guang-Je Tsai and Hsiu-Wen Chang

Sensors 2016, 16(1), 34; https://doi.org/10.3390/s16010034 - 28 Dec 2015

Cited by 13 | Viewed by 6214

Abstract

Hardware sensors embedded in a smartphone allow the device to become an excellent mobile navigator. A smartphone is ideal for this task because its great international popularity has led to increased phone power and since most of the necessary infrastructure is already in [...] Read more.

Hardware sensors embedded in a smartphone allow the device to become an excellent mobile navigator. A smartphone is ideal for this task because its great international popularity has led to increased phone power and since most of the necessary infrastructure is already in place. However, using a smartphone for indoor pedestrian navigation can be problematic due to the low accuracy of sensors, imprecise predictability of pedestrian motion, and inaccessibility of the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) in some indoor environments. Pedestrian Dead Reckoning (PDR) is one of the most common technologies used for pedestrian navigation, but in its present form, various errors tend to accumulate. This study introduces a fuzzy decision tree (FDT) aided by map information to improve the accuracy and stability of PDR with less dependency on infrastructure. First, the map is quickly surveyed by the Indoor Mobile Mapping System (IMMS). Next, Bluetooth beacons are implemented to enable the initializing of any position. Finally, map-aided FDT can estimate navigation solutions in real time. The experiments were conducted in different fields using a variety of smartphones and users in order to verify stability. The contrast PDR system demonstrates low stability for each case without pre-calibration and post-processing, but the proposed low-complexity FDT algorithm shows good stability and accuracy under the same conditions. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Indoor Mapping and Navigation)

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Open AccessArticle

HyMoTrack: A Mobile AR Navigation System for Complex Indoor Environments

by Georg Gerstweiler, Emanuel Vonach and Hannes Kaufmann

Sensors 2016, 16(1), 17; https://doi.org/10.3390/s16010017 - 24 Dec 2015

Cited by 50 | Viewed by 10589

Abstract

Navigating in unknown big indoor environments with static 2D maps is a challenge, especially when time is a critical factor. In order to provide a mobile assistant, capable of supporting people while navigating in indoor locations, an accurate and reliable localization system is [...] Read more.

Navigating in unknown big indoor environments with static 2D maps is a challenge, especially when time is a critical factor. In order to provide a mobile assistant, capable of supporting people while navigating in indoor locations, an accurate and reliable localization system is required in almost every corner of the building. We present a solution to this problem through a hybrid tracking system specifically designed for complex indoor spaces, which runs on mobile devices like smartphones or tablets. The developed algorithm only uses the available sensors built into standard mobile devices, especially the inertial sensors and the RGB camera. The combination of multiple optical tracking technologies, such as 2D natural features and features of more complex three-dimensional structures guarantees the robustness of the system. All processing is done locally and no network connection is needed. State-of-the-art indoor tracking approaches use mainly radio-frequency signals like Wi-Fi or Bluetooth for localizing a user. In contrast to these approaches, the main advantage of the developed system is the capability of delivering a continuous 3D position and orientation of the mobile device with centimeter accuracy. This makes it usable for localization and 3D augmentation purposes, e.g. navigation tasks or location-based information visualization. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Indoor Mapping and Navigation)

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Open AccessArticle

Integration of Directional Antennas in an RSS Fingerprinting-Based Indoor Localization System

by Raúl Guzmán-Quirós, Alejandro Martínez-Sala, José Luis Gómez-Tornero and Joan García-Haro

Sensors 2016, 16(1), 4; https://doi.org/10.3390/s16010004 - 23 Dec 2015

Cited by 19 | Viewed by 7470

Abstract

In this paper, the integration of directional antennas in a room-level received signal strength (RSS) fingerprinting-based indoor localization system (ILS) is studied. The sensor reader (SR), which is in charge of capturing the RSS to infer the tag position, can be attached to [...] Read more.

In this paper, the integration of directional antennas in a room-level received signal strength (RSS) fingerprinting-based indoor localization system (ILS) is studied. The sensor reader (SR), which is in charge of capturing the RSS to infer the tag position, can be attached to an omnidirectional or directional antenna. Unlike commonly-employed omnidirectional antennas, directional antennas can receive a stronger signal from the direction in which they are pointed, resulting in a different RSS distributions in space and, hence, more distinguishable fingerprints. A simulation tool and a system management software have been also developed to control the system and assist the initial antenna deployment, reducing time-consuming costs. A prototype was mounted in a real scenario, with a number of SRs with omnidirectional and directional antennas properly positioned. Different antenna configurations have been studied, evidencing a promising capability of directional antennas to enhance the performance of RSS fingerprinting-based ILS, reducing the number of required SRs and also increasing the localization success. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Indoor Mapping and Navigation)

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Open AccessArticle

Design, Implementation and Evaluation of an Indoor Navigation System for Visually Impaired People

by Alejandro Santos Martinez-Sala, Fernando Losilla, Juan Carlos Sánchez-Aarnoutse and Joan García-Haro

Sensors 2015, 15(12), 32168-32187; https://doi.org/10.3390/s151229912 - 21 Dec 2015

Cited by 70 | Viewed by 9812

Abstract

Indoor navigation is a challenging task for visually impaired people. Although there are guidance systems available for such purposes, they have some drawbacks that hamper their direct application in real-life situations. These systems are either too complex, inaccurate, or require very special conditions [...] Read more.

Indoor navigation is a challenging task for visually impaired people. Although there are guidance systems available for such purposes, they have some drawbacks that hamper their direct application in real-life situations. These systems are either too complex, inaccurate, or require very special conditions (i.e., rare in everyday life) to operate. In this regard, Ultra-Wideband (UWB) technology has been shown to be effective for indoor positioning, providing a high level of accuracy and low installation complexity. This paper presents SUGAR, an indoor navigation system for visually impaired people which uses UWB for positioning, a spatial database of the environment for pathfinding through the application of the A* algorithm, and a guidance module. The interaction with the user takes place using acoustic signals and voice commands played through headphones. The suitability of the system for indoor navigation has been verified by means of a functional and usable prototype through a field test with a blind person. In addition, other tests have been conducted in order to show the accuracy of different relevant parts of the system. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Indoor Mapping and Navigation)

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Open AccessArticle

Robust 3D Position Estimation in Wide and Unconstrained Indoor Environments

by Annette Mossel

Sensors 2015, 15(12), 31482-31524; https://doi.org/10.3390/s151229862 - 14 Dec 2015

Cited by 9 | Viewed by 9092

Abstract

In this paper, a system for 3D position estimation in wide, unconstrained indoor environments is presented that employs infrared optical outside-in tracking of rigid-body targets with a stereo camera rig. To overcome limitations of state-of-the-art optical tracking systems, a pipeline for robust target [...] Read more.

In this paper, a system for 3D position estimation in wide, unconstrained indoor environments is presented that employs infrared optical outside-in tracking of rigid-body targets with a stereo camera rig. To overcome limitations of state-of-the-art optical tracking systems, a pipeline for robust target identification and 3D point reconstruction has been investigated that enables camera calibration and tracking in environments with poor illumination, static and moving ambient light sources, occlusions and harsh conditions, such as fog. For evaluation, the system has been successfully applied in three different wide and unconstrained indoor environments, (1) user tracking for virtual and augmented reality applications, (2) handheld target tracking for tunneling and (3) machine guidance for mining. The results of each use case are discussed to embed the presented approach into a larger technological and application context. The experimental results demonstrate the system’s capabilities to track targets up to 100 m. Comparing the proposed approach to prior art in optical tracking in terms of range coverage and accuracy, it significantly extends the available tracking range, while only requiring two cameras and providing a relative 3D point accuracy with sub-centimeter deviation up to 30 m and low-centimeter deviation up to 100 m. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Indoor Mapping and Navigation)

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Open AccessArticle

Development of a 3D Underground Cadastral System with Indoor Mapping for As-Built BIM: The Case Study of Gangnam Subway Station in Korea

by Sangmin Kim, Jeonghyun Kim, Jaehoon Jung and Joon Heo

Sensors 2015, 15(12), 30870-30893; https://doi.org/10.3390/s151229833 - 09 Dec 2015

Cited by 23 | Viewed by 10203

Abstract

The cadastral system provides land ownership information by registering and representing land boundaries on a map. The current cadastral system in Korea, however, focuses mainly on the management of 2D land-surface boundaries. It is not yet possible to provide efficient or reliable land [...] Read more.

The cadastral system provides land ownership information by registering and representing land boundaries on a map. The current cadastral system in Korea, however, focuses mainly on the management of 2D land-surface boundaries. It is not yet possible to provide efficient or reliable land administration, as this 2D system cannot support or manage land information on 3D properties (including architectures and civil infrastructures) for both above-ground and underground facilities. A geometrical model of the 3D parcel, therefore, is required for registration of 3D properties. This paper, considering the role of the cadastral system, proposes a framework for a 3D underground cadastral system that can register various types of 3D underground properties using indoor mapping for as-built Building Information Modeling (BIM). The implementation consists of four phases: (1) geometric modeling of a real underground infrastructure using terrestrial laser scanning data; (2) implementation of as-built BIM based on geometric modeling results; (3) accuracy assessment for created as-built BIM using reference points acquired by total station; and (4) creation of three types of 3D underground cadastral map to represent underground properties. The experimental results, based on indoor mapping for as-built BIM, show that the proposed framework for a 3D underground cadastral system is able to register the rights, responsibilities, and restrictions corresponding to the 3D underground properties. In this way, clearly identifying the underground physical situation enables more reliable and effective decision-making in all aspects of the national land administration system. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Indoor Mapping and Navigation)

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Open AccessArticle

A Hybrid Indoor Localization and Navigation System with Map Matching for Pedestrians Using Smartphones

by Qinglin Tian, Zoran Salcic, Kevin I-Kai Wang and Yun Pan

Sensors 2015, 15(12), 30759-30783; https://doi.org/10.3390/s151229827 - 05 Dec 2015

Cited by 41 | Viewed by 7523

Abstract

Pedestrian dead reckoning is a common technique applied in indoor inertial navigation systems that is able to provide accurate tracking performance within short distances. Sensor drift is the main bottleneck in extending the system to long-distance and long-term tracking. In this paper, a [...] Read more.

Pedestrian dead reckoning is a common technique applied in indoor inertial navigation systems that is able to provide accurate tracking performance within short distances. Sensor drift is the main bottleneck in extending the system to long-distance and long-term tracking. In this paper, a hybrid system integrating traditional pedestrian dead reckoning based on the use of inertial measurement units, short-range radio frequency systems and particle filter map matching is proposed. The system is a drift-free pedestrian navigation system where position error and sensor drift is regularly corrected and is able to provide long-term accurate and reliable tracking. Moreover, the whole system is implemented on a commercial off-the-shelf smartphone and achieves real-time positioning and tracking performance with satisfactory accuracy. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Indoor Mapping and Navigation)

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Open AccessArticle

User-Independent Motion State Recognition Using Smartphone Sensors

by Fuqiang Gu, Allison Kealy, Kourosh Khoshelham and Jianga Shang

Sensors 2015, 15(12), 30636-30652; https://doi.org/10.3390/s151229821 - 04 Dec 2015

Cited by 42 | Viewed by 8569

Abstract

The recognition of locomotion activities (e.g., walking, running, still) is important for a wide range of applications like indoor positioning, navigation, location-based services, and health monitoring. Recently, there has been a growing interest in activity recognition using accelerometer data. However, when utilizing only [...] Read more.

The recognition of locomotion activities (e.g., walking, running, still) is important for a wide range of applications like indoor positioning, navigation, location-based services, and health monitoring. Recently, there has been a growing interest in activity recognition using accelerometer data. However, when utilizing only acceleration-based features, it is difficult to differentiate varying vertical motion states from horizontal motion states especially when conducting user-independent classification. In this paper, we also make use of the newly emerging barometer built in modern smartphones, and propose a novel feature called pressure derivative from the barometer readings for user motion state recognition, which is proven to be effective for distinguishing vertical motion states and does not depend on specific users’ data. Seven types of motion states are defined and six commonly-used classifiers are compared. In addition, we utilize the motion state history and the characteristics of people’s motion to improve the classification accuracies of those classifiers. Experimental results show that by using the historical information and human’s motion characteristics, we can achieve user-independent motion state classification with an accuracy of up to 90.7%. In addition, we analyze the influence of the window size and smartphone pose on the accuracy. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Indoor Mapping and Navigation)

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Open AccessArticle

Towards a Decentralized Magnetic Indoor Positioning System

by Zakaria Kasmi, Abdelmoumen Norrdine and Jörg Blankenbach

Sensors 2015, 15(12), 30319-30339; https://doi.org/10.3390/s151229799 - 04 Dec 2015

Cited by 24 | Viewed by 7476

Abstract

Decentralized magnetic indoor localization is a sophisticated method for processing sampled magnetic data directly on a mobile station (MS), thereby decreasing or even avoiding the need for communication with the base station. In contrast to central-oriented positioning systems, which transmit raw data to [...] Read more.

Decentralized magnetic indoor localization is a sophisticated method for processing sampled magnetic data directly on a mobile station (MS), thereby decreasing or even avoiding the need for communication with the base station. In contrast to central-oriented positioning systems, which transmit raw data to a base station, decentralized indoor localization pushes application-level knowledge into the MS. A decentralized position solution has thus a strong feasibility to increase energy efficiency and to prolong the lifetime of the MS. In this article, we present a complete architecture and an implementation for a decentralized positioning system. Furthermore, we introduce a technique for the synchronization of the observed magnetic field on the MS with the artificially-generated magnetic field from the coils. Based on real-time clocks (RTCs) and a preemptive operating system, this method allows a stand-alone control of the coils and a proper assignment of the measured magnetic fields on the MS. A stand-alone control and synchronization of the coils and the MS have an exceptional potential to implement a positioning system without the need for wired or wireless communication and enable a deployment of applications for rescue scenarios, like localization of miners or firefighters. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Indoor Mapping and Navigation)

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Open AccessArticle

A Novel Hybrid Intelligent Indoor Location Method for Mobile Devices by Zones Using Wi-Fi Signals

by Manuel Castañón–Puga, Abby Stephanie Salazar, Leocundo Aguilar, Carelia Gaxiola-Pacheco and Guillermo Licea

Sensors 2015, 15(12), 30142-30164; https://doi.org/10.3390/s151229791 - 02 Dec 2015

Cited by 10 | Viewed by 5639

Abstract

The increasing use of mobile devices in indoor spaces brings challenges to location methods. This work presents a hybrid intelligent method based on data mining and Type-2 fuzzy logic to locate mobile devices in an indoor space by zones using Wi-Fi signals from [...] Read more.

The increasing use of mobile devices in indoor spaces brings challenges to location methods. This work presents a hybrid intelligent method based on data mining and Type-2 fuzzy logic to locate mobile devices in an indoor space by zones using Wi-Fi signals from selected access points (APs). This approach takes advantage of wireless local area networks (WLANs) over other types of architectures and implements the complete method in a mobile application using the developed tools. Besides, the proposed approach is validated by experimental data obtained from case studies and the cross-validation technique. For the purpose of generating the fuzzy rules that conform to the Takagi–Sugeno fuzzy system structure, a semi-supervised data mining technique called subtractive clustering is used. This algorithm finds centers of clusters from the radius map given by the collected signals from APs. Measurements of Wi-Fi signals can be noisy due to several factors mentioned in this work, so this method proposed the use of Type-2 fuzzy logic for modeling and dealing with such uncertain information. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Indoor Mapping and Navigation)

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Open AccessArticle

Process Mining Methodology for Health Process Tracking Using Real-Time Indoor Location Systems

by Carlos Fernandez-Llatas, Aroa Lizondo, Eduardo Monton, Jose-Miguel Benedi and Vicente Traver

Sensors 2015, 15(12), 29821-29840; https://doi.org/10.3390/s151229769 - 30 Nov 2015

Cited by 90 | Viewed by 9774

Abstract

The definition of efficient and accurate health processes in hospitals is crucial for ensuring an adequate quality of service. Knowing and improving the behavior of the surgical processes in a hospital can improve the number of patients that can be operated on using [...] Read more.

The definition of efficient and accurate health processes in hospitals is crucial for ensuring an adequate quality of service. Knowing and improving the behavior of the surgical processes in a hospital can improve the number of patients that can be operated on using the same resources. However, the measure of this process is usually made in an obtrusive way, forcing nurses to get information and time data, affecting the proper process and generating inaccurate data due to human errors during the stressful journey of health staff in the operating theater. The use of indoor location systems can take time information about the process in an unobtrusive way, freeing nurses, allowing them to engage in purely welfare work. However, it is necessary to present these data in a understandable way for health professionals, who cannot deal with large amounts of historical localization log data. The use of process mining techniques can deal with this problem, offering an easily understandable view of the process. In this paper, we present a tool and a process mining-based methodology that, using indoor location systems, enables health staff not only to represent the process, but to know precise information about the deployment of the process in an unobtrusive and transparent way. We have successfully tested this tool in a real surgical area with 3613 patients during February, March and April of 2015. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Indoor Mapping and Navigation)

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Open AccessArticle

A Mixed Approach to Similarity Metric Selection in Affinity Propagation-Based WiFi Fingerprinting Indoor Positioning

by Giuseppe Caso, Luca De Nardis and Maria-Gabriella Di Benedetto

Sensors 2015, 15(11), 27692-27720; https://doi.org/10.3390/s151127692 - 30 Oct 2015

Cited by 40 | Viewed by 6221

Abstract

The weighted k-nearest neighbors (WkNN) algorithm is by far the most popular choice in the design of fingerprinting indoor positioning systems based on WiFi received signal strength (RSS). WkNN estimates the position of a target device by selecting [...] Read more.

The weighted k-nearest neighbors (WkNN) algorithm is by far the most popular choice in the design of fingerprinting indoor positioning systems based on WiFi received signal strength (RSS). WkNN estimates the position of a target device by selecting k reference points (RPs) based on the similarity of their fingerprints with the measured RSS values. The position of the target device is then obtained as a weighted sum of the positions of the k RPs. Two-step WkNN positioning algorithms were recently proposed, in which RPs are divided into clusters using the affinity propagation clustering algorithm, and one representative for each cluster is selected. Only cluster representatives are then considered during the position estimation, leading to a significant computational complexity reduction compared to traditional, flat WkNN. Flat and two-step WkNN share the issue of properly selecting the similarity metric so as to guarantee good positioning accuracy: in two-step WkNN, in particular, the metric impacts three different steps in the position estimation, that is cluster formation, cluster selection and RP selection and weighting. So far, however, the only similarity metric considered in the literature was the one proposed in the original formulation of the affinity propagation algorithm. This paper fills this gap by comparing different metrics and, based on this comparison, proposes a novel mixed approach in which different metrics are adopted in the different steps of the position estimation procedure. The analysis is supported by an extensive experimental campaign carried out in a multi-floor 3D indoor positioning testbed. The impact of similarity metrics and their combinations on the structure and size of the resulting clusters, 3D positioning accuracy and computational complexity are investigated. Results show that the adoption of metrics different from the one proposed in the original affinity propagation algorithm and, in particular, the combination of different metrics can significantly improve the positioning accuracy while preserving the efficiency in computational complexity typical of two-step algorithms. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Indoor Mapping and Navigation)

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Open AccessArticle

APFiLoc: An Infrastructure-Free Indoor Localization Method Fusing Smartphone Inertial Sensors, Landmarks and Map Information

by Jianga Shang, Fuqiang Gu, Xuke Hu and Allison Kealy

Sensors 2015, 15(10), 27251-27272; https://doi.org/10.3390/s151027251 - 26 Oct 2015

Cited by 51 | Viewed by 8701

Abstract

The utility and adoption of indoor localization applications have been limited due to the complex nature of the physical environment combined with an increasing requirement for more robust localization performance. Existing solutions to this problem are either too expensive or too dependent on [...] Read more.

The utility and adoption of indoor localization applications have been limited due to the complex nature of the physical environment combined with an increasing requirement for more robust localization performance. Existing solutions to this problem are either too expensive or too dependent on infrastructure such as Wi-Fi access points. To address this problem, we propose APFiLoc—a low cost, smartphone-based framework for indoor localization. The key idea behind this framework is to obtain landmarks within the environment and to use the augmented particle filter to fuse them with measurements from smartphone sensors and map information. A clustering method based on distance constraints is developed to detect organic landmarks in an unsupervised way, and the least square support vector machine is used to classify seed landmarks. A series of real-world experiments were conducted in complex environments including multiple floors and the results show APFiLoc can achieve 80% accuracy (phone in the hand) and around 70% accuracy (phone in the pocket) of the error less than 2 m error without the assistance of infrastructure like Wi-Fi access points. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Indoor Mapping and Navigation)

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Open AccessArticle

Hyperbolic Positioning with Antenna Arrays and Multi-Channel Pseudolite for Indoor Localization

by Kenjirou Fujii, Yoshihiro Sakamoto, Wei Wang, Hiroaki Arie, Alexander Schmitz and Shigeki Sugano

Sensors 2015, 15(10), 25157-25175; https://doi.org/10.3390/s151025157 - 30 Sep 2015

Cited by 28 | Viewed by 8013

Abstract

A hyperbolic positioning method with antenna arrays consisting of proximately-located antennas and a multi-channel pseudolite is proposed in order to overcome the problems of indoor positioning with conventional pseudolites (ground-based GPS transmitters). A two-dimensional positioning experiment using actual devices is conducted. The experimental [...] Read more.

A hyperbolic positioning method with antenna arrays consisting of proximately-located antennas and a multi-channel pseudolite is proposed in order to overcome the problems of indoor positioning with conventional pseudolites (ground-based GPS transmitters). A two-dimensional positioning experiment using actual devices is conducted. The experimental result shows that the positioning accuracy varies centimeter- to meter-level according to the geometric relation between the pseudolite antennas and the receiver. It also shows that the bias error of the carrier-phase difference observables is more serious than their random error. Based on the size of the bias error of carrier-phase difference that is inverse-calculated from the experimental result, three-dimensional positioning performance is evaluated by computer simulation. In addition, in the three-dimensional positioning scenario, an initial value convergence analysis of the non-linear least squares is conducted. Its result shows that initial values that can converge to a right position exist at least under the proposed antenna setup. The simulated values and evaluation methods introduced in this work can be applied to various antenna setups; therefore, by using them, positioning performance can be predicted in advance of installing an actual system. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Indoor Mapping and Navigation)

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Open AccessArticle

PRIMAL: Page Rank-Based Indoor Mapping and Localization Using Gene-Sequenced Unlabeled WLAN Received Signal Strength

by Mu Zhou, Qiao Zhang, Kunjie Xu, Zengshan Tian, Yanmeng Wang and Wei He

Sensors 2015, 15(10), 24791-24817; https://doi.org/10.3390/s151024791 - 25 Sep 2015

Cited by 16 | Viewed by 5625

Abstract

Due to the wide deployment of wireless local area networks (WLAN), received signal strength (RSS)-based indoor WLAN localization has attracted considerable attention in both academia and industry. In this paper, we propose a novel page rank-based indoor mapping and localization (PRIMAL) by using [...] Read more.

Due to the wide deployment of wireless local area networks (WLAN), received signal strength (RSS)-based indoor WLAN localization has attracted considerable attention in both academia and industry. In this paper, we propose a novel page rank-based indoor mapping and localization (PRIMAL) by using the gene-sequenced unlabeled WLAN RSS for simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM). Specifically, first of all, based on the observation of the motion patterns of the people in the target environment, we use the Allen logic to construct the mobility graph to characterize the connectivity among different areas of interest. Second, the concept of gene sequencing is utilized to assemble the sporadically-collected RSS sequences into a signal graph based on the transition relations among different RSS sequences. Third, we apply the graph drawing approach to exhibit both the mobility graph and signal graph in a more readable manner. Finally, the page rank (PR) algorithm is proposed to construct the mapping from the signal graph into the mobility graph. The experimental results show that the proposed approach achieves satisfactory localization accuracy and meanwhile avoids the intensive time and labor cost involved in the conventional location fingerprinting-based indoor WLAN localization. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Indoor Mapping and Navigation)

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Open AccessArticle

Integrated WiFi/PDR/Smartphone Using an Unscented Kalman Filter Algorithm for 3D Indoor Localization

by Guoliang Chen, Xiaolin Meng, Yunjia Wang, Yanzhe Zhang, Peng Tian and Huachao Yang

Sensors 2015, 15(9), 24595-24614; https://doi.org/10.3390/s150924595 - 23 Sep 2015

Cited by 117 | Viewed by 11013

Abstract

Because of the high calculation cost and poor performance of a traditional planar map when dealing with complicated indoor geographic information, a WiFi fingerprint indoor positioning system cannot be widely employed on a smartphone platform. By making full use of the hardware sensors [...] Read more.

Because of the high calculation cost and poor performance of a traditional planar map when dealing with complicated indoor geographic information, a WiFi fingerprint indoor positioning system cannot be widely employed on a smartphone platform. By making full use of the hardware sensors embedded in the smartphone, this study proposes an integrated approach to a three-dimensional (3D) indoor positioning system. First, an improved K-means clustering method is adopted to reduce the fingerprint database retrieval time and enhance positioning efficiency. Next, with the mobile phone’s acceleration sensor, a new step counting method based on auto-correlation analysis is proposed to achieve cell phone inertial navigation positioning. Furthermore, the integration of WiFi positioning with Pedestrian Dead Reckoning (PDR) obtains higher positional accuracy with the help of the Unscented Kalman Filter algorithm. Finally, a hybrid 3D positioning system based on Unity 3D, which can carry out real-time positioning for targets in 3D scenes, is designed for the fluent operation of mobile terminals. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Indoor Mapping and Navigation)

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Open AccessArticle

INS/GPS/LiDAR Integrated Navigation System for Urban and Indoor Environments Using Hybrid Scan Matching Algorithm

by Yanbin Gao, Shifei Liu, Mohamed M. Atia and Aboelmagd Noureldin

Sensors 2015, 15(9), 23286-23302; https://doi.org/10.3390/s150923286 - 15 Sep 2015

Cited by 142 | Viewed by 11763

Abstract

This paper takes advantage of the complementary characteristics of Global Positioning System (GPS) and Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) to provide periodic corrections to Inertial Navigation System (INS) alternatively in different environmental conditions. In open sky, where GPS signals are available and LiDAR [...] Read more.

This paper takes advantage of the complementary characteristics of Global Positioning System (GPS) and Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) to provide periodic corrections to Inertial Navigation System (INS) alternatively in different environmental conditions. In open sky, where GPS signals are available and LiDAR measurements are sparse, GPS is integrated with INS. Meanwhile, in confined outdoor environments and indoors, where GPS is unreliable or unavailable and LiDAR measurements are rich, LiDAR replaces GPS to integrate with INS. This paper also proposes an innovative hybrid scan matching algorithm that combines the feature-based scan matching method and Iterative Closest Point (ICP) based scan matching method. The algorithm can work and transit between two modes depending on the number of matched line features over two scans, thus achieving efficiency and robustness concurrently. Two integration schemes of INS and LiDAR with hybrid scan matching algorithm are implemented and compared. Real experiments are performed on an Unmanned Ground Vehicle (UGV) for both outdoor and indoor environments. Experimental results show that the multi-sensor integrated system can remain sub-meter navigation accuracy during the whole trajectory. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Indoor Mapping and Navigation)

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Open AccessArticle

An Improved WiFi Indoor Positioning Algorithm by Weighted Fusion

by Rui Ma, Qiang Guo, Changzhen Hu and Jingfeng Xue

Sensors 2015, 15(9), 21824-21843; https://doi.org/10.3390/s150921824 - 31 Aug 2015

Cited by 123 | Viewed by 10417

Abstract

The rapid development of mobile Internet has offered the opportunity for WiFi indoor positioning to come under the spotlight due to its low cost. However, nowadays the accuracy of WiFi indoor positioning cannot meet the demands of practical applications. To solve this problem, [...] Read more.

The rapid development of mobile Internet has offered the opportunity for WiFi indoor positioning to come under the spotlight due to its low cost. However, nowadays the accuracy of WiFi indoor positioning cannot meet the demands of practical applications. To solve this problem, this paper proposes an improved WiFi indoor positioning algorithm by weighted fusion. The proposed algorithm is based on traditional location fingerprinting algorithms and consists of two stages: the offline acquisition and the online positioning. The offline acquisition process selects optimal parameters to complete the signal acquisition, and it forms a database of fingerprints by error classification and handling. To further improve the accuracy of positioning, the online positioning process first uses a pre-match method to select the candidate fingerprints to shorten the positioning time. After that, it uses the improved Euclidean distance and the improved joint probability to calculate two intermediate results, and further calculates the final result from these two intermediate results by weighted fusion. The improved Euclidean distance introduces the standard deviation of WiFi signal strength to smooth the WiFi signal fluctuation and the improved joint probability introduces the logarithmic calculation to reduce the difference between probability values. Comparing the proposed algorithm, the Euclidean distance based WKNN algorithm and the joint probability algorithm, the experimental results indicate that the proposed algorithm has higher positioning accuracy. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Indoor Mapping and Navigation)

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Open AccessArticle

A Probabilistic Feature Map-Based Localization System Using a Monocular Camera

by Hyungjin Kim, Donghwa Lee, Taekjun Oh, Hyun-Taek Choi and Hyun Myung

Sensors 2015, 15(9), 21636-21659; https://doi.org/10.3390/s150921636 - 31 Aug 2015

Cited by 16 | Viewed by 7045

Abstract

Image-based localization is one of the most widely researched localization techniques in the robotics and computer vision communities. As enormous image data sets are provided through the Internet, many studies on estimating a location with a pre-built image-based 3D map have been conducted. [...] Read more.

Image-based localization is one of the most widely researched localization techniques in the robotics and computer vision communities. As enormous image data sets are provided through the Internet, many studies on estimating a location with a pre-built image-based 3D map have been conducted. Most research groups use numerous image data sets that contain sufficient features. In contrast, this paper focuses on image-based localization in the case of insufficient images and features. A more accurate localization method is proposed based on a probabilistic map using 3D-to-2D matching correspondences between a map and a query image. The probabilistic feature map is generated in advance by probabilistic modeling of the sensor system as well as the uncertainties of camera poses. Using the conventional PnP algorithm, an initial camera pose is estimated on the probabilistic feature map. The proposed algorithm is optimized from the initial pose by minimizing Mahalanobis distance errors between features from the query image and the map to improve accuracy. To verify that the localization accuracy is improved, the proposed algorithm is compared with the conventional algorithm in a simulation and realenvironments Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Indoor Mapping and Navigation)

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Open AccessArticle

Heading Estimation for Indoor Pedestrian Navigation Using a Smartphone in the Pocket

by Zhi-An Deng, Guofeng Wang, Ying Hu and Di Wu

Sensors 2015, 15(9), 21518-21536; https://doi.org/10.3390/s150921518 - 28 Aug 2015

Cited by 104 | Viewed by 8358

Abstract

Heading estimation is a central problem for indoor pedestrian navigation using the pervasively available smartphone. For smartphones placed in a pocket, one of the most popular device positions, the essential challenges in heading estimation are the changing device coordinate system and the severe [...] Read more.

Heading estimation is a central problem for indoor pedestrian navigation using the pervasively available smartphone. For smartphones placed in a pocket, one of the most popular device positions, the essential challenges in heading estimation are the changing device coordinate system and the severe indoor magnetic perturbations. To address these challenges, we propose a novel heading estimation approach based on a rotation matrix and principal component analysis (PCA). Firstly, through a related rotation matrix, we project the acceleration signals into a reference coordinate system (RCS), where a more accurate estimation of the horizontal plane of the acceleration signal is obtained. Then, we utilize PCA over the horizontal plane of acceleration signals for local walking direction extraction. Finally, in order to translate the local walking direction into the global one, we develop a calibration process without requiring noisy compass readings. Besides, a turn detection algorithm is proposed to improve the heading estimation accuracy. Experimental results show that our approach outperforms the traditional uDirect and PCA-based approaches in terms of accuracy and feasibility. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Indoor Mapping and Navigation)

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Open AccessArticle

Received Signal Strength Database Interpolation by Kriging for a Wi-Fi Indoor Positioning System

by Shau-Shiun Jan, Shuo-Ju Yeh and Ya-Wen Liu

Sensors 2015, 15(9), 21377-21393; https://doi.org/10.3390/s150921377 - 28 Aug 2015

Cited by 59 | Viewed by 7045

Abstract

The main approach for a Wi-Fi indoor positioning system is based on the received signal strength (RSS) measurements, and the fingerprinting method is utilized to determine the user position by matching the RSS values with the pre-surveyed RSS database. To build a RSS [...] Read more.

The main approach for a Wi-Fi indoor positioning system is based on the received signal strength (RSS) measurements, and the fingerprinting method is utilized to determine the user position by matching the RSS values with the pre-surveyed RSS database. To build a RSS fingerprint database is essential for an RSS based indoor positioning system, and building such a RSS fingerprint database requires lots of time and effort. As the range of the indoor environment becomes larger, labor is increased. To provide better indoor positioning services and to reduce the labor required for the establishment of the positioning system at the same time, an indoor positioning system with an appropriate spatial interpolation method is needed. In addition, the advantage of the RSS approach is that the signal strength decays as the transmission distance increases, and this signal propagation characteristic is applied to an interpolated database with the Kriging algorithm in this paper. Using the distribution of reference points (RPs) at measured points, the signal propagation model of the Wi-Fi access point (AP) in the building can be built and expressed as a function. The function, as the spatial structure of the environment, can create the RSS database quickly in different indoor environments. Thus, in this paper, a Wi-Fi indoor positioning system based on the Kriging fingerprinting method is developed. As shown in the experiment results, with a 72.2% probability, the error of the extended RSS database with Kriging is less than 3 dBm compared to the surveyed RSS database. Importantly, the positioning error of the developed Wi-Fi indoor positioning system with Kriging is reduced by 17.9% in average than that without Kriging. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Indoor Mapping and Navigation)

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Open AccessArticle

Saliency-Guided Detection of Unknown Objects in RGB-D Indoor Scenes

by Jiatong Bao, Yunyi Jia, Yu Cheng and Ning Xi

Sensors 2015, 15(9), 21054-21074; https://doi.org/10.3390/s150921054 - 27 Aug 2015

Cited by 22 | Viewed by 8094

Abstract

This paper studies the problem of detecting unknown objects within indoor environments in an active and natural manner. The visual saliency scheme utilizing both color and depth cues is proposed to arouse the interests of the machine system for detecting unknown objects at [...] Read more.

This paper studies the problem of detecting unknown objects within indoor environments in an active and natural manner. The visual saliency scheme utilizing both color and depth cues is proposed to arouse the interests of the machine system for detecting unknown objects at salient positions in a 3D scene. The 3D points at the salient positions are selected as seed points for generating object hypotheses using the 3D shape. We perform multi-class labeling on a Markov random field (MRF) over the voxels of the 3D scene, combining cues from object hypotheses and 3D shape. The results from MRF are further refined by merging the labeled objects, which are spatially connected and have high correlation between color histograms. Quantitative and qualitative evaluations on two benchmark RGB-D datasets illustrate the advantages of the proposed method. The experiments of object detection and manipulation performed on a mobile manipulator validate its effectiveness and practicability in robotic applications. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Indoor Mapping and Navigation)

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Open AccessArticle

Infrastructure-Less Indoor Localization Using the Microphone, Magnetometer and Light Sensor of a Smartphone

by Carlos E. Galván-Tejada, Juan Pablo García-Vázquez, Jorge I. Galván-Tejada, J. Rubén Delgado-Contreras and Ramon F. Brena

Sensors 2015, 15(8), 20355-20372; https://doi.org/10.3390/s150820355 - 18 Aug 2015

Cited by 27 | Viewed by 6988

Abstract

In this paper, we present the development of an infrastructure-less indoor location system (ILS), which relies on the use of a microphone, a magnetometer and a light sensor of a smartphone, all three of which are essentially passive sensors, relying on signals available [...] Read more.

In this paper, we present the development of an infrastructure-less indoor location system (ILS), which relies on the use of a microphone, a magnetometer and a light sensor of a smartphone, all three of which are essentially passive sensors, relying on signals available practically in any building in the world, no matter how developed the region is. In our work, we merge the information from those sensors to estimate the user’s location in an indoor environment. A multivariate model is applied to find the user’s location, and we evaluate the quality of the resulting model in terms of sensitivity and specificity. Our experiments were carried out in an office environment during summer and winter, to take into account changes in light patterns, as well as changes in the Earth’s magnetic field irregularities. The experimental results clearly show the benefits of using the information fusion of multiple sensors when contrasted with the use of a single source of information. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Indoor Mapping and Navigation)

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Open AccessArticle

VisitSense: Sensing Place Visit Patterns from Ambient Radio on Smartphones for Targeted Mobile Ads in Shopping Malls

by Byoungjip Kim, Seungwoo Kang, Jin-Young Ha and Junehwa Song

Sensors 2015, 15(7), 17274-17299; https://doi.org/10.3390/s150717274 - 16 Jul 2015

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 6871

Abstract

In this paper, we introduce a novel smartphone framework called VisitSense that automatically detects and predicts a smartphone user’s place visits from ambient radio to enable behavioral targeting for mobile ads in large shopping malls. VisitSense enables mobile app developers to adopt visit-pattern-aware [...] Read more.

In this paper, we introduce a novel smartphone framework called VisitSense that automatically detects and predicts a smartphone user’s place visits from ambient radio to enable behavioral targeting for mobile ads in large shopping malls. VisitSense enables mobile app developers to adopt visit-pattern-aware mobile advertising for shopping mall visitors in their apps. It also benefits mobile users by allowing them to receive highly relevant mobile ads that are aware of their place visit patterns in shopping malls. To achieve the goal, VisitSense employs accurate visit detection and prediction methods. For accurate visit detection, we develop a change-based detection method to take into consideration the stability change of ambient radio and the mobility change of users. It performs well in large shopping malls where ambient radio is quite noisy and causes existing algorithms to easily fail. In addition, we proposed a causality-based visit prediction model to capture the causality in the sequential visit patterns for effective prediction. We have developed a VisitSense prototype system, and a visit-pattern-aware mobile advertising application that is based on it. Furthermore, we deploy the system in the COEX Mall, one of the largest shopping malls in Korea, and conduct diverse experiments to show the effectiveness of VisitSense. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Indoor Mapping and Navigation)

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Open AccessArticle

Graph Structure-Based Simultaneous Localization and Mapping Using a Hybrid Method of 2D Laser Scan and Monocular Camera Image in Environments with Laser Scan Ambiguity

by Taekjun Oh, Donghwa Lee, Hyungjin Kim and Hyun Myung

Sensors 2015, 15(7), 15830-15852; https://doi.org/10.3390/s150715830 - 03 Jul 2015

Cited by 22 | Viewed by 8500

Abstract

Localization is an essential issue for robot navigation, allowing the robot to perform tasks autonomously. However, in environments with laser scan ambiguity, such as long corridors, the conventional SLAM (simultaneous localization and mapping) algorithms exploiting a laser scanner may not estimate the robot [...] Read more.

Localization is an essential issue for robot navigation, allowing the robot to perform tasks autonomously. However, in environments with laser scan ambiguity, such as long corridors, the conventional SLAM (simultaneous localization and mapping) algorithms exploiting a laser scanner may not estimate the robot pose robustly. To resolve this problem, we propose a novel localization approach based on a hybrid method incorporating a 2D laser scanner and a monocular camera in the framework of a graph structure-based SLAM. 3D coordinates of image feature points are acquired through the hybrid method, with the assumption that the wall is normal to the ground and vertically flat. However, this assumption can be relieved, because the subsequent feature matching process rejects the outliers on an inclined or non-flat wall. Through graph optimization with constraints generated by the hybrid method, the final robot pose is estimated. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed method, real experiments were conducted in an indoor environment with a long corridor. The experimental results were compared with those of the conventional GMappingapproach. The results demonstrate that it is possible to localize the robot in environments with laser scan ambiguity in real time, and the performance of the proposed method is superior to that of the conventional approach. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Indoor Mapping and Navigation)

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Open AccessArticle

A Low Complexity System Based on Multiple Weighted Decision Trees for Indoor Localization

by David Sánchez-Rodríguez, Pablo Hernández-Morera, José Ma. Quinteiro and Itziar Alonso-González

Sensors 2015, 15(6), 14809-14829; https://doi.org/10.3390/s150614809 - 23 Jun 2015

Cited by 39 | Viewed by 6784

Abstract

Indoor position estimation has become an attractive research topic due to growing interest in location-aware services. Nevertheless, satisfying solutions have not been found with the considerations of both accuracy and system complexity. From the perspective of lightweight mobile devices, they are extremely important [...] Read more.

Indoor position estimation has become an attractive research topic due to growing interest in location-aware services. Nevertheless, satisfying solutions have not been found with the considerations of both accuracy and system complexity. From the perspective of lightweight mobile devices, they are extremely important characteristics, because both the processor power and energy availability are limited. Hence, an indoor localization system with high computational complexity can cause complete battery drain within a few hours. In our research, we use a data mining technique named boosting to develop a localization system based on multiple weighted decision trees to predict the device location, since it has high accuracy and low computational complexity. The localization system is built using a dataset from sensor fusion, which combines the strength of radio signals from different wireless local area network access points and device orientation information from a digital compass built-in mobile device, so that extra sensors are unnecessary. Experimental results indicate that the proposed system leads to substantial improvements on computational complexity over the widely-used traditional fingerprinting methods, and it has a better accuracy than they have. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Indoor Mapping and Navigation)

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Open AccessArticle

Loop Closing Detection in RGB-D SLAM Combining Appearance and Geometric Constraints

by Heng Zhang, Yanli Liu and Jindong Tan

Sensors 2015, 15(6), 14639-14660; https://doi.org/10.3390/s150614639 - 19 Jun 2015

Cited by 18 | Viewed by 7950

Abstract

A kind of multi feature points matching algorithm fusing local geometric constraints is proposed for the purpose of quickly loop closing detection in RGB-D Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM). The visual feature is encoded with BRAND (binary robust appearance and normals descriptor), which [...] Read more.

A kind of multi feature points matching algorithm fusing local geometric constraints is proposed for the purpose of quickly loop closing detection in RGB-D Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM). The visual feature is encoded with BRAND (binary robust appearance and normals descriptor), which efficiently combines appearance and geometric shape information from RGB-D images. Furthermore, the feature descriptors are stored using the Locality-Sensitive-Hashing (LSH) technique and hierarchical clustering trees are used to search for these binary features. Finally, the algorithm for matching of multi feature points using local geometric constraints is provided, which can effectively reject the possible false closure hypotheses. We demonstrate the efficiency of our algorithms by real-time RGB-D SLAM with loop closing detection in indoor image sequences taken with a handheld Kinect camera and comparative experiments using other algorithms in RTAB-Map dealing with a benchmark dataset. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Indoor Mapping and Navigation)

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Open AccessArticle

Entropy-Based TOA Estimation and SVM-Based Ranging Error Mitigation in UWB Ranging Systems

by Zhendong Yin, Kai Cui, Zhilu Wu and Liang Yin

Sensors 2015, 15(5), 11701-11724; https://doi.org/10.3390/s150511701 - 21 May 2015

Cited by 29 | Viewed by 6169

Abstract

The major challenges for Ultra-wide Band (UWB) indoor ranging systems are the dense multipath and non-line-of-sight (NLOS) problems of the indoor environment. To precisely estimate the time of arrival (TOA) of the first path (FP) in such a poor environment, a novel approach [...] Read more.

The major challenges for Ultra-wide Band (UWB) indoor ranging systems are the dense multipath and non-line-of-sight (NLOS) problems of the indoor environment. To precisely estimate the time of arrival (TOA) of the first path (FP) in such a poor environment, a novel approach of entropy-based TOA estimation and support vector machine (SVM) regression-based ranging error mitigation is proposed in this paper. The proposed method can estimate the TOA precisely by measuring the randomness of the received signals and mitigate the ranging error without the recognition of the channel conditions. The entropy is used to measure the randomness of the received signals and the FP can be determined by the decision of the sample which is followed by a great entropy decrease. The SVM regression is employed to perform the ranging-error mitigation by the modeling of the regressor between the characteristics of received signals and the ranging error. The presented numerical simulation results show that the proposed approach achieves significant performance improvements in the CM1 to CM4 channels of the IEEE 802.15.4a standard, as compared to conventional approaches. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Indoor Mapping and Navigation)

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Open AccessArticle

Towards the Automatic Scanning of Indoors with Robots

by Antonio Adán, Blanca Quintana, Andres S. Vázquez, Alberto Olivares, Eduardo Parra and Samuel Prieto

Sensors 2015, 15(5), 11551-11574; https://doi.org/10.3390/s150511551 - 19 May 2015

Cited by 27 | Viewed by 7806

Abstract

This paper is framed in both 3D digitization and 3D data intelligent processing research fields. Our objective is focused on developing a set of techniques for the automatic creation of simple three-dimensional indoor models with mobile robots. The document presents the principal steps [...] Read more.

This paper is framed in both 3D digitization and 3D data intelligent processing research fields. Our objective is focused on developing a set of techniques for the automatic creation of simple three-dimensional indoor models with mobile robots. The document presents the principal steps of the process, the experimental setup and the results achieved. We distinguish between the stages concerning intelligent data acquisition and 3D data processing. This paper is focused on the first stage. We show how the mobile robot, which carries a 3D scanner, is able to, on the one hand, make decisions about the next best scanner position and, on the other hand, navigate autonomously in the scene with the help of the data collected from earlier scans. After this stage, millions of 3D data are converted into a simplified 3D indoor model. The robot imposes a stopping criterion when the whole point cloud covers the essential parts of the scene. This system has been tested under real conditions indoors with promising results. The future is addressed to extend the method in much more complex and larger scenarios. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Indoor Mapping and Navigation)

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Open AccessArticle

Afocal Optical Flow Sensor for Reducing Vertical Height Sensitivity in Indoor Robot Localization and Navigation

by Dong-Hoon Yi, Tae-Jae Lee and Dong-Il Cho

Sensors 2015, 15(5), 11208-11221; https://doi.org/10.3390/s150511208 - 13 May 2015

Cited by 14 | Viewed by 8719

Abstract

This paper introduces a novel afocal optical flow sensor (OFS) system for odometry estimation in indoor robotic navigation. The OFS used in computer optical mouse has been adopted for mobile robots because it is not affected by wheel slippage. Vertical height variance is [...] Read more.

This paper introduces a novel afocal optical flow sensor (OFS) system for odometry estimation in indoor robotic navigation. The OFS used in computer optical mouse has been adopted for mobile robots because it is not affected by wheel slippage. Vertical height variance is thought to be a dominant factor in systematic error when estimating moving distances in mobile robots driving on uneven surfaces. We propose an approach to mitigate this error by using an afocal (infinite effective focal length) system. We conducted experiments in a linear guide on carpet and three other materials with varying sensor heights from 30 to 50 mm and a moving distance of 80 cm. The same experiments were repeated 10 times. For the proposed afocal OFS module, a 1 mm change in sensor height induces a 0.1% systematic error; for comparison, the error for a conventional fixed-focal-length OFS module is 14.7%. Finally, the proposed afocal OFS module was installed on a mobile robot and tested 10 times on a carpet for distances of 1 m. The average distance estimation error and standard deviation are 0.02% and 17.6%, respectively, whereas those for a conventional OFS module are 4.09% and 25.7%, respectively. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Indoor Mapping and Navigation)

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7747 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Quaternion-Based Unscented Kalman Filter for Accurate Indoor Heading Estimation Using Wearable Multi-Sensor System

by Xuebing Yuan, Shuai Yu, Shengzhi Zhang, Guoping Wang and Sheng Liu

Sensors 2015, 15(5), 10872-10890; https://doi.org/10.3390/s150510872 - 07 May 2015

Cited by 90 | Viewed by 10662

Abstract

Inertial navigation based on micro-electromechanical system (MEMS) inertial measurement units (IMUs) has attracted numerous researchers due to its high reliability and independence. The heading estimation, as one of the most important parts of inertial navigation, has been a research focus in this field. [...] Read more.

Inertial navigation based on micro-electromechanical system (MEMS) inertial measurement units (IMUs) has attracted numerous researchers due to its high reliability and independence. The heading estimation, as one of the most important parts of inertial navigation, has been a research focus in this field. Heading estimation using magnetometers is perturbed by magnetic disturbances, such as indoor concrete structures and electronic equipment. The MEMS gyroscope is also used for heading estimation. However, the accuracy of gyroscope is unreliable with time. In this paper, a wearable multi-sensor system has been designed to obtain the high-accuracy indoor heading estimation, according to a quaternion-based unscented Kalman filter (UKF) algorithm. The proposed multi-sensor system including one three-axis accelerometer, three single-axis gyroscopes, one three-axis magnetometer and one microprocessor minimizes the size and cost. The wearable multi-sensor system was fixed on waist of pedestrian and the quadrotor unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) for heading estimation experiments in our college building. The results show that the mean heading estimation errors are less 10° and 5° to multi-sensor system fixed on waist of pedestrian and the quadrotor UAV, respectively, compared to the reference path. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Indoor Mapping and Navigation)

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Open AccessArticle

Mobile Robot Positioning with 433-MHz Wireless Motes with Varying Transmission Powers and a Particle Filter

by Adrian Canedo-Rodriguez, Jose Manuel Rodriguez, Victor Alvarez-Santos, Roberto Iglesias and Carlos V. Regueiro

Sensors 2015, 15(5), 10194-10220; https://doi.org/10.3390/s150510194 - 30 Apr 2015

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 6375

Abstract

In wireless positioning systems, the transmitter’s power is usually fixed. In this paper, we explore the use of varying transmission powers to increase the performance of a wireless localization system. To this extent, we have designed a robot positioning system based on wireless [...] Read more.

In wireless positioning systems, the transmitter’s power is usually fixed. In this paper, we explore the use of varying transmission powers to increase the performance of a wireless localization system. To this extent, we have designed a robot positioning system based on wireless motes. Our motes use an inexpensive, low-power sub-1-GHz system-on-chip (CC1110) working in the 433-MHz ISM band. Our localization algorithm is based on a particle filter and infers the robot position by: (1) comparing the power received with the expected one; and (2) integrating the robot displacement. We demonstrate that the use of transmitters that vary their transmission power over time improves the performance of the wireless positioning system significantly, with respect to a system that uses fixed power transmitters. This opens the door for applications where the robot can localize itself actively by requesting the transmitters to change their power in real time. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Indoor Mapping and Navigation)

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Open AccessArticle

A New Indoor Positioning System Architecture Using GPS Signals

by Rui Xu, Wu Chen, Ying Xu and Shengyue Ji

Sensors 2015, 15(5), 10074-10087; https://doi.org/10.3390/s150510074 - 29 Apr 2015

Cited by 75 | Viewed by 10886

Abstract

The pseudolite system is a good alternative for indoor positioning systems due to its large coverage area and accurate positioning solution. However, for common Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers, the pseudolite system requires some modifications of the user terminals. To solve the problem, [...] Read more.

The pseudolite system is a good alternative for indoor positioning systems due to its large coverage area and accurate positioning solution. However, for common Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers, the pseudolite system requires some modifications of the user terminals. To solve the problem, this paper proposes a new pseudolite-based indoor positioning system architecture. The main idea is to receive real-world GPS signals, repeat each satellite signal and transmit those using indoor transmitting antennas. The transmitted GPS-like signal can be processed (signal acquisition and tracking, navigation data decoding) by the general receiver and thus no hardware-level modification on the receiver is required. In addition, all Tx can be synchronized with each other since one single clock is used in Rx/Tx. The proposed system is simulated using a software GPS receiver. The simulation results show the indoor positioning system is able to provide high accurate horizontal positioning in both static and dynamic situations. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Indoor Mapping and Navigation)

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Open AccessArticle

Inertial Pocket Navigation System: Unaided 3D Positioning

by Estefania Munoz Diaz

Sensors 2015, 15(4), 9156-9178; https://doi.org/10.3390/s150409156 - 17 Apr 2015

Cited by 66 | Viewed by 8032

Abstract

Inertial navigation systems use dead-reckoning to estimate the pedestrian’s position. There are two types of pedestrian dead-reckoning, the strapdown algorithm and the step-and-heading approach. Unlike the strapdown algorithm, which consists of the double integration of the three orthogonal accelerometer readings, the step-and-heading approach [...] Read more.

Inertial navigation systems use dead-reckoning to estimate the pedestrian’s position. There are two types of pedestrian dead-reckoning, the strapdown algorithm and the step-and-heading approach. Unlike the strapdown algorithm, which consists of the double integration of the three orthogonal accelerometer readings, the step-and-heading approach lacks the vertical displacement estimation. We propose the first step-and-heading approach based on unaided inertial data solving 3D positioning. We present a step detector for steps up and down and a novel vertical displacement estimator. Our navigation system uses the sensor introduced in the front pocket of the trousers, a likely location of a smartphone. The proposed algorithms are based on the opening angle of the leg or pitch angle. We analyzed our step detector and compared it with the state-of-the-art, as well as our already proposed step length estimator. Lastly, we assessed our vertical displacement estimator in a real-world scenario. We found that our algorithms outperform the literature step and heading algorithms and solve 3D positioning using unaided inertial data. Additionally, we found that with the pitch angle, five activities are distinguishable: standing, sitting, walking, walking up stairs and walking down stairs. This information complements the pedestrian location and is of interest for applications, such as elderly care. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Indoor Mapping and Navigation)

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Open AccessArticle

A Novel Method for Constructing a WIFI Positioning System with Efficient Manpower

by Yuanfeng Du, Dongkai Yang and Chundi Xiu

Sensors 2015, 15(4), 8358-8381; https://doi.org/10.3390/s150408358 - 10 Apr 2015

Cited by 51 | Viewed by 9162

Abstract

With the rapid development of WIFI technology, WIFI-based indoor positioning technology has been widely studied for location-based services. To solve the problems related to the signal strength database adopted in the widely used fingerprint positioning technology, we first introduce a new system framework [...] Read more.

With the rapid development of WIFI technology, WIFI-based indoor positioning technology has been widely studied for location-based services. To solve the problems related to the signal strength database adopted in the widely used fingerprint positioning technology, we first introduce a new system framework in this paper, which includes a modified AP firmware and some cheap self-made WIFI sensor anchors. The periodically scanned reports regarding the neighboring APs and sensor anchors are sent to the positioning server and serve as the calibration points. Besides the calculation of correlations between the target points and the neighboring calibration points, we take full advantage of the important but easily overlooked feature that the signal attenuation model varies in different regions in the regression algorithm to get more accurate results. Thus, a novel method called RSSI Geography Weighted Regression (RGWR) is proposed to solve the fingerprint database construction problem. The average error of all the calibration points’ self-localization results will help to make the final decision of whether the database is the latest or has to be updated automatically. The effects of anchors on system performance are further researched to conclude that the anchors should be deployed at the locations that stand for the features of RSSI distributions. The proposed system is convenient for the establishment of practical positioning system and extensive experiments have been performed to validate that the proposed method is robust and manpower efficient. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Indoor Mapping and Navigation)

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Open AccessArticle

Using Multiple Barometers to Detect the Floor Location of Smart Phones with Built-in Barometric Sensors for Indoor Positioning

by Hao Xia, Xiaogang Wang, Yanyou Qiao, Jun Jian and Yuanfei Chang

Sensors 2015, 15(4), 7857-7877; https://doi.org/10.3390/s150407857 - 31 Mar 2015

Cited by 76 | Viewed by 8606

Abstract

Following the popularity of smart phones and the development of mobile Internet, the demands for accurate indoor positioning have grown rapidly in recent years. Previous indoor positioning methods focused on plane locations on a floor and did not provide accurate floor positioning. In [...] Read more.

Following the popularity of smart phones and the development of mobile Internet, the demands for accurate indoor positioning have grown rapidly in recent years. Previous indoor positioning methods focused on plane locations on a floor and did not provide accurate floor positioning. In this paper, we propose a method that uses multiple barometers as references for the floor positioning of smart phones with built-in barometric sensors. Some related studies used barometric formula to investigate the altitude of mobile devices and compared the altitude with the height of the floors in a building to obtain the floor number. These studies assume that the accurate height of each floor is known, which is not always the case. They also did not consider the difference in the barometric-pressure pattern at different floors, which may lead to errors in the altitude computation. Our method does not require knowledge of the accurate heights of buildings and stories. It is robust and less sensitive to factors such as temperature and humidity and considers the difference in the barometric-pressure change trends at different floors. We performed a series of experiments to validate the effectiveness of this method. The results are encouraging. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Indoor Mapping and Navigation)

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1063 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Robust Method to Detect Zero Velocity for Improved 3D Personal Navigation Using Inertial Sensors

by Zhengyi Xu, Jianming Wei, Bo Zhang and Weijun Yang

Sensors 2015, 15(4), 7708-7727; https://doi.org/10.3390/s150407708 - 30 Mar 2015

Cited by 27 | Viewed by 6161

Abstract

This paper proposes a robust zero velocity (ZV) detector algorithm to accurately calculate stationary periods in a gait cycle. The proposed algorithm adopts an effective gait cycle segmentation method and introduces a Bayesian network (BN) model based on the measurements of inertial sensors [...] Read more.

This paper proposes a robust zero velocity (ZV) detector algorithm to accurately calculate stationary periods in a gait cycle. The proposed algorithm adopts an effective gait cycle segmentation method and introduces a Bayesian network (BN) model based on the measurements of inertial sensors and kinesiology knowledge to infer the ZV period. During the detected ZV period, an Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) is used to estimate the error states and calibrate the position error. The experiments reveal that the removal rate of ZV false detections by the proposed method increases 80% compared with traditional method at high walking speed. Furthermore, based on the detected ZV, the Personal Inertial Navigation System (PINS) algorithm aided by EKF performs better, especially in the altitude aspect. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Indoor Mapping and Navigation)

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Open AccessArticle

NFC Internal: An Indoor Navigation System

by Busra Ozdenizci, Vedat Coskun and Kerem Ok

Sensors 2015, 15(4), 7571-7595; https://doi.org/10.3390/s150407571 - 27 Mar 2015

Cited by 75 | Viewed by 12349

Abstract

Indoor navigation systems have recently become a popular research field due to the lack of GPS signals indoors. Several indoors navigation systems have already been proposed in order to eliminate deficiencies; however each of them has several technical and usability limitations. In this [...] Read more.

Indoor navigation systems have recently become a popular research field due to the lack of GPS signals indoors. Several indoors navigation systems have already been proposed in order to eliminate deficiencies; however each of them has several technical and usability limitations. In this study, we propose NFC Internal, a Near Field Communication (NFC)-based indoor navigation system, which enables users to navigate through a building or a complex by enabling a simple location update, simply by touching NFC tags those are spread around and orient users to the destination. In this paper, we initially present the system requirements, give the design details and study the viability of NFC Internal with a prototype application and a case study. Moreover, we evaluate the performance of the system and compare it with existing indoor navigation systems. It is seen that NFC Internal has considerable advantages and significant contributions to existing indoor navigation systems in terms of security and privacy, cost, performance, robustness, complexity, user preference and commercial availability. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Indoor Mapping and Navigation)

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3569 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Floor-Map-Aided WiFi/Pseudo-Odometry Integration Algorithm for an Indoor Positioning System

by Jian Wang, Andong Hu, Chunyan Liu and Xin Li

Sensors 2015, 15(4), 7096-7124; https://doi.org/10.3390/s150407096 - 24 Mar 2015

Cited by 42 | Viewed by 8183

Abstract

This paper proposes a scheme for indoor positioning by fusing floor map, WiFi and smartphone sensor data to provide meter-level positioning without additional infrastructure. A topology-constrained K nearest neighbor (KNN) algorithm based on a floor map layout provides the coordinates required to integrate [...] Read more.

This paper proposes a scheme for indoor positioning by fusing floor map, WiFi and smartphone sensor data to provide meter-level positioning without additional infrastructure. A topology-constrained K nearest neighbor (KNN) algorithm based on a floor map layout provides the coordinates required to integrate WiFi data with pseudo-odometry (P-O) measurements simulated using a pedestrian dead reckoning (PDR) approach. One method of further improving the positioning accuracy is to use a more effective multi-threshold step detection algorithm, as proposed by the authors. The “go and back” phenomenon caused by incorrect matching of the reference points (RPs) of a WiFi algorithm is eliminated using an adaptive fading-factor-based extended Kalman filter (EKF), taking WiFi positioning coordinates, P-O measurements and fused heading angles as observations. The “cross-wall” problem is solved based on the development of a floor-map-aided particle filter algorithm by weighting the particles, thereby also eliminating the gross-error effects originating from WiFi or P-O measurements. The performance observed in a field experiment performed on the fourth floor of the School of Environmental Science and Spatial Informatics (SESSI) building on the China University of Mining and Technology (CUMT) campus confirms that the proposed scheme can reliably achieve meter-level positioning. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Indoor Mapping and Navigation)

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2138 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Location Detection and Tracking of Moving Targets by a 2D IR-UWB Radar System

by Van-Han Nguyen and Jae-Young Pyun

Sensors 2015, 15(3), 6740-6762; https://doi.org/10.3390/s150306740 - 19 Mar 2015

Cited by 83 | Viewed by 12832

Abstract

In indoor environments, the Global Positioning System (GPS) and long-range tracking radar systems are not optimal, because of signal propagation limitations in the indoor environment. In recent years, the use of ultra-wide band (UWB) technology has become a possible solution for object detection, [...] Read more.

In indoor environments, the Global Positioning System (GPS) and long-range tracking radar systems are not optimal, because of signal propagation limitations in the indoor environment. In recent years, the use of ultra-wide band (UWB) technology has become a possible solution for object detection, localization and tracking in indoor environments, because of its high range resolution, compact size and low cost. This paper presents improved target detection and tracking techniques for moving objects with impulse-radio UWB (IR-UWB) radar in a short-range indoor area. This is achieved through signal-processing steps, such as clutter reduction, target detection, target localization and tracking. In this paper, we introduce a new combination consisting of our proposed signal-processing procedures. In the clutter-reduction step, a filtering method that uses a Kalman filter (KF) is proposed. Then, in the target detection step, a modification of the conventional CLEAN algorithm which is used to estimate the impulse response from observation region is applied for the advanced elimination of false alarms. Then, the output is fed into the target localization and tracking step, in which the target location and trajectory are determined and tracked by using unscented KF in two-dimensional coordinates. In each step, the proposed methods are compared to conventional methods to demonstrate the differences in performance. The experiments are carried out using actual IR-UWB radar under different scenarios. The results verify that the proposed methods can improve the probability and efficiency of target detection and tracking. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Indoor Mapping and Navigation)

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1284 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Framework for Mining Actionable Navigation Patterns from In-Store RFID Datasets via Indoor Mapping

by Bin Shen, Qiuhua Zheng, Xingsen Li and Libo Xu

Sensors 2015, 15(3), 5344-5375; https://doi.org/10.3390/s150305344 - 05 Mar 2015

Cited by 18 | Viewed by 6417

Abstract

With the quick development of RFID technology and the decreasing prices of RFID devices, RFID is becoming widely used in various intelligent services. Especially in the retail application domain, RFID is increasingly adopted to capture the shopping tracks and behavior of in-store customers. [...] Read more.

With the quick development of RFID technology and the decreasing prices of RFID devices, RFID is becoming widely used in various intelligent services. Especially in the retail application domain, RFID is increasingly adopted to capture the shopping tracks and behavior of in-store customers. To further enhance the potential of this promising application, in this paper, we propose a unified framework for RFID-based path analytics, which uses both in-store shopping paths and RFID-based purchasing data to mine actionable navigation patterns. Four modules of this framework are discussed, which are: (1) mapping from the physical space to the cyber space, (2) data preprocessing, (3) pattern mining and (4) knowledge understanding and utilization. In the data preprocessing module, the critical problem of how to capture the mainstream shopping path sequences while wiping out unnecessary redundant and repeated details is addressed in detail. To solve this problem, two types of redundant patterns, i.e., loop repeat pattern and palindrome-contained pattern are recognized and the corresponding processing algorithms are proposed. The experimental results show that the redundant pattern filtering functions are effective and scalable. Overall, this work builds a bridge between indoor positioning and advanced data mining technologies, and provides a feasible way to study customers’ shopping behaviors via multi-source RFID data. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Indoor Mapping and Navigation)

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4549 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Fast Fingerprint Database Maintenance for Indoor Positioning Based on UGV SLAM

by Jian Tang, Yuwei Chen, Liang Chen, Jingbin Liu, Juha Hyyppä, Antero Kukko, Harri Kaartinen, Hannu Hyyppä and Ruizhi Chen

Sensors 2015, 15(3), 5311-5330; https://doi.org/10.3390/s150305311 - 04 Mar 2015

Cited by 45 | Viewed by 9605

Abstract

Indoor positioning technology has become more and more important in the last two decades. Utilizing Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) fingerprints of Signals of OPportunity (SOP) is a promising alternative navigation solution. However, as the RSSIs vary during operation due to their physical [...] Read more.

Indoor positioning technology has become more and more important in the last two decades. Utilizing Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) fingerprints of Signals of OPportunity (SOP) is a promising alternative navigation solution. However, as the RSSIs vary during operation due to their physical nature and are easily affected by the environmental change, one challenge of the indoor fingerprinting method is maintaining the RSSI fingerprint database in a timely and effective manner. In this paper, a solution for rapidly updating the fingerprint database is presented, based on a self-developed Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGV) platform NAVIS. Several SOP sensors were installed on NAVIS for collecting indoor fingerprint information, including a digital compass collecting magnetic field intensity, a light sensor collecting light intensity, and a smartphone which collects the access point number and RSSIs of the pre-installed WiFi network. The NAVIS platform generates a map of the indoor environment and collects the SOPs during processing of the mapping, and then the SOP fingerprint database is interpolated and updated in real time. Field tests were carried out to evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed method. The results showed that the fingerprint databases can be quickly created and updated with a higher sampling frequency (5Hz) and denser reference points compared with traditional methods, and the indoor map can be generated without prior information. Moreover, environmental changes could also be detected quickly for fingerprint indoor positioning. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Indoor Mapping and Navigation)

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Open AccessArticle

Vector Graph Assisted Pedestrian Dead Reckoning Using an Unconstrained Smartphone

by Jiuchao Qian, Ling Pei, Jiabin Ma, Rendong Ying and Peilin Liu

Sensors 2015, 15(3), 5032-5057; https://doi.org/10.3390/s150305032 - 02 Mar 2015

Cited by 58 | Viewed by 10971

Abstract

The paper presents a hybrid indoor positioning solution based on a pedestrian dead reckoning (PDR) approach using built-in sensors on a smartphone. To address the challenges of flexible and complex contexts of carrying a phone while walking, a robust step detection algorithm based [...] Read more.

The paper presents a hybrid indoor positioning solution based on a pedestrian dead reckoning (PDR) approach using built-in sensors on a smartphone. To address the challenges of flexible and complex contexts of carrying a phone while walking, a robust step detection algorithm based on motion-awareness has been proposed. Given the fact that step length is influenced by different motion states, an adaptive step length estimation algorithm based on motion recognition is developed. Heading estimation is carried out by an attitude acquisition algorithm, which contains a two-phase filter to mitigate the distortion of magnetic anomalies. In order to estimate the heading for an unconstrained smartphone, principal component analysis (PCA) of acceleration is applied to determine the offset between the orientation of smartphone and the actual heading of a pedestrian. Moreover, a particle filter with vector graph assisted particle weighting is introduced to correct the deviation in step length and heading estimation. Extensive field tests, including four contexts of carrying a phone, have been conducted in an office building to verify the performance of the proposed algorithm. Test results show that the proposed algorithm can achieve sub-meter mean error in all contexts. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Indoor Mapping and Navigation)

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Open AccessArticle

3D Modeling of Building Indoor Spaces and Closed Doors from Imagery and Point Clouds

by Lucía Díaz-Vilariño, Kourosh Khoshelham, Joaquín Martínez-Sánchez and Pedro Arias

Sensors 2015, 15(2), 3491-3512; https://doi.org/10.3390/s150203491 - 03 Feb 2015

Cited by 87 | Viewed by 10074

Abstract

3D models of indoor environments are increasingly gaining importance due to the wide range of applications to which they can be subjected: from redesign and visualization to monitoring and simulation. These models usually exist only for newly constructed buildings; therefore, the development of [...] Read more.

3D models of indoor environments are increasingly gaining importance due to the wide range of applications to which they can be subjected: from redesign and visualization to monitoring and simulation. These models usually exist only for newly constructed buildings; therefore, the development of automatic approaches for reconstructing 3D indoors from imagery and/or point clouds can make the process easier, faster and cheaper. Among the constructive elements defining a building interior, doors are very common elements and their detection can be very useful either for knowing the environment structure, to perform an efficient navigation or to plan appropriate evacuation routes. The fact that doors are topologically connected to walls by being coplanar, together with the unavoidable presence of clutter and occlusions indoors, increases the inherent complexity of the automation of the recognition process. In this work, we present a pipeline of techniques used for the reconstruction and interpretation of building interiors based on point clouds and images. The methodology analyses the visibility problem of indoor environments and goes in depth with door candidate detection. The presented approach is tested in real data sets showing its potential with a high door detection rate and applicability for robust and efficient envelope reconstruction. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Indoor Mapping and Navigation)

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Open AccessArticle

A Fast and Precise Indoor Localization Algorithm Based on an Online Sequential Extreme Learning Machine

by Han Zou, Xiaoxuan Lu, Hao Jiang and Lihua Xie

Sensors 2015, 15(1), 1804-1824; https://doi.org/10.3390/s150101804 - 15 Jan 2015

Cited by 128 | Viewed by 9765

Abstract

Nowadays, developing indoor positioning systems (IPSs) has become an attractive research topic due to the increasing demands on location-based service (LBS) in indoor environments. WiFi technology has been studied and explored to provide indoor positioning service for years in view of the wide [...] Read more.

Nowadays, developing indoor positioning systems (IPSs) has become an attractive research topic due to the increasing demands on location-based service (LBS) in indoor environments. WiFi technology has been studied and explored to provide indoor positioning service for years in view of the wide deployment and availability of existing WiFi infrastructures in indoor environments. A large body of WiFi-based IPSs adopt fingerprinting approaches for localization. However, these IPSs suffer from two major problems: the intensive costs of manpower and time for offline site survey and the inflexibility to environmental dynamics. In this paper, we propose an indoor localization algorithm based on an online sequential extreme learning machine (OS-ELM) to address the above problems accordingly. The fast learning speed of OS-ELM can reduce the time and manpower costs for the offline site survey. Meanwhile, its online sequential learning ability enables the proposed localization algorithm to adapt in a timely manner to environmental dynamics. Experiments under specific environmental changes, such as variations of occupancy distribution and events of opening or closing of doors, are conducted to evaluate the performance of OS-ELM. The simulation and experimental results show that the proposed localization algorithm can provide higher localization accuracy than traditional approaches, due to its fast adaptation to various environmental dynamics. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Indoor Mapping and Navigation)

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633 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Received Signal Strength Recovery in Green WLAN Indoor Positioning System Using Singular Value Thresholding

by Lin Ma and Yubin Xu

Sensors 2015, 15(1), 1292-1311; https://doi.org/10.3390/s150101292 - 12 Jan 2015

Cited by 31 | Viewed by 6443

Abstract

Green WLAN is a promising technique for accessing future indoor Internet services. It is designed not only for high-speed data communication purposes but also for energy efficiency. The basic strategy of green WLAN is that all the access points are not always powered [...] Read more.

Green WLAN is a promising technique for accessing future indoor Internet services. It is designed not only for high-speed data communication purposes but also for energy efficiency. The basic strategy of green WLAN is that all the access points are not always powered on, but rather work on-demand. Though powering off idle access points does not affect data communication, a serious asymmetric matching problem will arise in a WLAN indoor positioning system due to the fact the received signal strength (RSS) readings from the available access points are different in their offline and online phases. This asymmetry problem will no doubt invalidate the fingerprint algorithm used to estimate the mobile device location. Therefore, in this paper we propose a green WLAN indoor positioning system, which can recover RSS readings and achieve good localization performance based on singular value thresholding (SVT) theory. By solving the nuclear norm minimization problem, SVT recovers not only the radio map, but also online RSS readings from a sparse matrix by sensing only a fraction of the RSS readings. We have implemented the method in our lab and evaluated its performances. The experimental results indicate the proposed system could recover the RSS readings and achieve good localization performance. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Indoor Mapping and Navigation)

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Open AccessArticle

Fusion of WiFi, Smartphone Sensors and Landmarks Using the Kalman Filter for Indoor Localization

by Zhenghua Chen, Han Zou, Hao Jiang, Qingchang Zhu, Yeng Chai Soh and Lihua Xie

Sensors 2015, 15(1), 715-732; https://doi.org/10.3390/s150100715 - 05 Jan 2015

Cited by 340 | Viewed by 21247

Abstract

Location-based services (LBS) have attracted a great deal of attention recently. Outdoor localization can be solved by the GPS technique, but how to accurately and efficiently localize pedestrians in indoor environments is still a challenging problem. Recent techniques based on WiFi or pedestrian [...] Read more.

Location-based services (LBS) have attracted a great deal of attention recently. Outdoor localization can be solved by the GPS technique, but how to accurately and efficiently localize pedestrians in indoor environments is still a challenging problem. Recent techniques based on WiFi or pedestrian dead reckoning (PDR) have several limiting problems, such as the variation of WiFi signals and the drift of PDR. An auxiliary tool for indoor localization is landmarks, which can be easily identified based on specific sensor patterns in the environment, and this will be exploited in our proposed approach. In this work, we propose a sensor fusion framework for combining WiFi, PDR and landmarks. Since the whole system is running on a smartphone, which is resource limited, we formulate the sensor fusion problem in a linear perspective, then a Kalman filter is applied instead of a particle filter, which is widely used in the literature. Furthermore, novel techniques to enhance the accuracy of individual approaches are adopted. In the experiments, an Android app is developed for real-time indoor localization and navigation. A comparison has been made between our proposed approach and individual approaches. The results show significant improvement using our proposed framework. Our proposed system can provide an average localization accuracy of 1 m. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Indoor Mapping and Navigation)

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Open AccessArticle

Stand-Alone and Hybrid Positioning Using Asynchronous Pseudolites

by Ciro Gioia and Daniele Borio

Sensors 2015, 15(1), 166-193; https://doi.org/10.3390/s150100166 - 24 Dec 2014

Cited by 19 | Viewed by 6406

Abstract

global navigation satellite system (GNSS) receivers are usually unable to achieve satisfactory performance in difficult environments, such as open-pit mines, urban canyons and indoors. Pseudolites have the potential to extend GNSS usage and significantly improve receiver performance in such environments by providing additional [...] Read more.

global navigation satellite system (GNSS) receivers are usually unable to achieve satisfactory performance in difficult environments, such as open-pit mines, urban canyons and indoors. Pseudolites have the potential to extend GNSS usage and significantly improve receiver performance in such environments by providing additional navigation signals. This also applies to asynchronous pseudolite systems, where different pseudolites operate in an independent way. Asynchronous pseudolite systems require, however, dedicated strategies in order to properly integrate GNSS and pseudolite measurements. In this paper, several asynchronous pseudolite/GNSS integration strategies are considered: loosely- and tightly-coupled approaches are developed and combined with pseudolite proximity and receiver signal strength (RSS)-based positioning. The performance of the approaches proposed has been tested in different scenarios, including static and kinematic conditions. The tests performed demonstrate that the methods developed are effective techniques for integrating heterogeneous measurements from different sources, such as asynchronous pseudolites and GNSS. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Indoor Mapping and Navigation)

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Open AccessArticle

Magnetic, Acceleration Fields and Gyroscope Quaternion (MAGYQ)-Based Attitude Estimation with Smartphone Sensors for Indoor Pedestrian Navigation

by Valérie Renaudin and Christophe Combettes

Sensors 2014, 14(12), 22864-22890; https://doi.org/10.3390/s141222864 - 02 Dec 2014

Cited by 133 | Viewed by 12728

Abstract

The dependence of proposed pedestrian navigation solutions on a dedicated infrastructure is a limiting factor to the deployment of location based services. Consequently self-contained Pedestrian Dead-Reckoning (PDR) approaches are gaining interest for autonomous navigation. Even if the quality of low cost inertial sensors [...] Read more.

The dependence of proposed pedestrian navigation solutions on a dedicated infrastructure is a limiting factor to the deployment of location based services. Consequently self-contained Pedestrian Dead-Reckoning (PDR) approaches are gaining interest for autonomous navigation. Even if the quality of low cost inertial sensors and magnetometers has strongly improved, processing noisy sensor signals combined with high hand dynamics remains a challenge. Estimating accurate attitude angles for achieving long term positioning accuracy is targeted in this work. A new Magnetic, Acceleration fields and GYroscope Quaternion (MAGYQ)-based attitude angles estimation filter is proposed and demonstrated with handheld sensors. It benefits from a gyroscope signal modelling in the quaternion set and two new opportunistic updates: magnetic angular rate update (MARU) and acceleration gradient update (AGU). MAGYQ filter performances are assessed indoors, outdoors, with dynamic and static motion conditions. The heading error, using only the inertial solution, is found to be less than 10° after 1.5 km walking. The performance is also evaluated in the positioning domain with trajectories computed following a PDR strategy. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Indoor Mapping and Navigation)

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Open AccessArticle

Locally-Referenced Ultrasonic – LPS for Localization and Navigation

by David Gualda, Jesús Ureña, Juan C. García and Alejandro Lindo

Sensors 2014, 14(11), 21750-21769; https://doi.org/10.3390/s141121750 - 18 Nov 2014

Cited by 23 | Viewed by 5573

Abstract

This paper presents a flexible deployment of ultrasonic position sensors and a novel positioning algorithm suitable for the navigation of mobile robots (MRs) in extensive indoor environments. Our proposal uses several independently-referenced local positioning systems (LPS), which means that each one of them [...] Read more.

This paper presents a flexible deployment of ultrasonic position sensors and a novel positioning algorithm suitable for the navigation of mobile robots (MRs) in extensive indoor environments. Our proposal uses several independently-referenced local positioning systems (LPS), which means that each one of them operates within its own local reference system. In a typical layout, an indoor extensive area can be covered using just a reduced set of globally-referenced LPS (GRLPS), whose beacon positions are known to the global reference system, while the rest of the space can be covered using locally-referenced LPSs (LRLPS) that can be distributed arbitrarily. The number of LRLPS and their position can be also changed at any moment. The algorithm is composed of several Bayesian filters running in parallel, so that when an MR is under the GRLPS coverage area, its position is updated by a global filter, whereas when the MR is inside the LRLPS area, its position is updated using position increments within a local filter. The navigation algorithm has been tested by simulation and with actual data obtained using a real set of ultrasonic LPSs. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Indoor Mapping and Navigation)

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