Bluetooth Mesh Networks for Indoor Localization

Abstract

Indoor Localization Systems (ILS) are increasingly applied in various use cases, such as tracking the position and movement of staff or equipment within buildings. Creating and applying these systems requires decisions about measuring and transmitting signals, the algorithm transforming signals into position estimations as well as the representation displayed to the user. One approach gaining significance recently in this context are Mesh Networks. A Mesh Network enables single nodes to exchange information with other nodes directly and dynamically, increases the error-tolerance, and facilitates the setup by reducing installation overhead. This paper studies the applicability of Bluetooth Mesh Networking technology for ILS by means of an experimental setup. The quality of localization is evaluated depending on different inference approaches as well as the scalability of the Bluetooth Mesh Technology. As initial results show, ILS based on Bluetooth Mesh Networks provide similar results regarding the accuracy of localization compared to other underlying technologies, such as Wi-Fi mesh networks, and can be set up with lower effort and costs. However, the underlying Bluetooth technology limits the scalability of the mesh network, especially in case of permanent localization of nodes.