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Indoor Navigation: Indoor Positioning System Using Sensing Technologies

A special issue of Sensors (ISSN 1424-8220). This special issue belongs to the section "Navigation and Positioning".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 March 2025 | Viewed by 1694

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Faculty of Computer Science and Business Information Systems, Technical University of Applied Sciences Wuerzburg-Schweinfurt, 97074 Wuerzburg, Germany
Interests: machine learning; pattern recognition; computer graphics; sensor fusion; indoor localization
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Location-based services play a crucial role in our daily lives, aiding in navigation for vehicles and pedestrians. However, significant portions of our activities occur indoors—whether at home, work, shopping malls, museums, or during travels. Traditional outdoor navigation technologies, such as Global Navigation Satellite Systems, are ineffective indoors due to weak signal reception, posing a challenge for context-aware services vital for social networking, advertising, recommendation systems, and healthcare.

Indoor positioning systems address this challenge by leveraging a variety of sensing technologies, including Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, RFID, Ultra-Wide Band, and IMU sensors. The complexity of indoor environments, combined with human motion patterns and uncertain sensor data, necessitates modeling indoor positioning with powerful mathematical models (typically non-linear and non-Gaussian) to accurately predict pedestrian locations.

Sensor fusion plays a pivotal role by integrating data from multiple sensors, improving accuracy and reliability. This Special Issue explores innovative approaches in indoor navigation and positioning using advanced sensing technologies. Researchers are invited to contribute their cutting-edge findings, focusing on solutions that combine various sensing technologies to enhance the effectiveness of indoor positioning systems.

Prof. Dr. Frank Deinzer
Guest Editor

Toni Fetzer ([email protected])
Guest Editor Assistant

Manuscript Submission Information

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Keywords

  • indoor navigation
  • positioning systems
  • sensing technologies
  • sensor fusion
  • Wi-Fi/bluetooth
  • ultra-wideband
  • inertial measurement unit
  • non-linear systems

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

16 pages, 468 KiB  
Article
Modeling and Analysis of Dispersive Propagation of Structural Waves for Vibro-Localization
by Murat Ambarkutuk and Paul E. Plassmann
Sensors 2024, 24(23), 7744; https://doi.org/10.3390/s24237744 - 4 Dec 2024
Viewed by 432
Abstract
The dispersion of structural waves, where wave speed varies with frequency, introduces significant challenges in accurately localizing occupants in a building based on vibrations caused by their movements. This study presents a novel multi-sensor vibro-localization technique that accounts for dispersion effects, enhancing the [...] Read more.
The dispersion of structural waves, where wave speed varies with frequency, introduces significant challenges in accurately localizing occupants in a building based on vibrations caused by their movements. This study presents a novel multi-sensor vibro-localization technique that accounts for dispersion effects, enhancing the accuracy and robustness of occupant localization. The proposed method utilizes a model-based approach to parameterize key propagation phenomena, including wave dispersion and attenuation, which are fitted to observed waveforms. The localization is achieved by maximizing the joint likelihood of the occupant’s location based on sensor measurements. The effectiveness of the proposed technique is validated using two experimental datasets: one from a controlled environment involving an aluminum plate and the other from a building-scale experiment conducted at Goodwin Hall, Virginia Tech. Results for the proposed algorithm demonstrates a significant improvement in localization accuracy compared to benchmark algorithms. Specifically, in the aluminum plate experiments, the proposed technique reduced the average localization precision from 7.77 cm to 1.97 cm, representing a ∼74% improvement. Similarly, in the Goodwin Hall experiments, the average localization error decreased from 0.67 m to 0.3 m, with a ∼55% enhancement in accuracy. These findings indicate that the proposed approach outperforms existing methods in accurately determining occupant locations, even in the presence of dispersive wave propagation. Full article
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19 pages, 2077 KiB  
Article
Application of Indoor Positioning Systems in Nursing Homes: Enhancing Resident Safety and Staff Efficiency
by Chia-Rong Lee, Edward T.-H. Chu, Min-Jing Sie, Li-Tsai Lin, Mei-Zhen Hong and Ching-Chih Huang
Sensors 2024, 24(18), 6099; https://doi.org/10.3390/s24186099 - 20 Sep 2024
Viewed by 936
Abstract
Providing a safe and secure living environment for residents that is supported by a dedicated healthcare team is one of the core values of nursing homes. Nursing homes must protect residents from the risk of going missing, track quarantined residents and visitors to [...] Read more.
Providing a safe and secure living environment for residents that is supported by a dedicated healthcare team is one of the core values of nursing homes. Nursing homes must protect residents from the risk of going missing, track quarantined residents and visitors to control the spread of infection, and maintain proactive nursing rounds. However, recruiting and retaining qualified caregivers and medical staff has long been a challenge. Therefore, using advanced technology to ensure the safety and security of residents is highly desirable. In this work, we first demonstrate the applicability of indoor tracking applications in a nursing home, such as resident and asset tracking, nursing assistant management, visitor tracking, infection control, and vital-sign monitoring. To monitor the locations of residents and staff, Bluetooth tags were used, providing real-time data for location tracking. We then conduct a series of quantitative analyses to illustrate how indoor tracking data can support the management of nursing homes, including characterizing residents’ activities in daily living and assessing the performance and workload of nursing assistants. Finally, we use qualitative research to evaluate the acceptability of an indoor positioning system in the nursing home. The results show that the implemented indoor positioning applications can improve the quality of healthcare and working efficiency, thereby providing a safer and more secure living environment for residents. Full article
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