An Overview of Location Semantics Technologies and Applications

Abstract

A localization system is a coordinate system for describing the world, organizing the world, and controlling the world. Without a coordinate system, we cannot specify the world in mathematical forms; we cannot regulate processes that may involve spatial collisions; we cannot even automate a robot for physical actions. This paper provides an overview of indoor localization technologies, popular models for extracting semantics from location data, approaches for associating semantic information and location data, and applications that may be enabled with location semantics. To make the presentation easy to understand, we will use a museum scenario to explain the pros and cons of different technologies and models. More specifically, we will first explore users' needs in a museum scenario. Based on these needs, we will then discuss advantages and disadvantages of using different localization technologies to meet these needs. From these discussions, we can highlight gaps between real application requirements and existing technologies, and point out promising localization research directions. Similarly, we will also discuss context information required by different applications and explore models and ontologies for connecting users, objects, and environment factors with semantics. By identifying gaps between various models and real application requirements, we can draw a roadmap for future location semantics research.