FineLoc: A Fine-Grained Self-Calibrating Wireless Indoor Localization System

Abstract

Self-calibrating wireless indoor localization systems construct the radio map even the indoor floor plan automatically, which avoids the labor-intensive site survey process; however, existing systems utilizing the feature of Wi-Fi signals can only provide coarse-grained indoor maps, which hinders improvement of localization accuracy. In this paper, we present FineLoc, a fine-grained self-calibrating localization system based on the freely-deployed Bluetooth low energy (BLE) nodes and crowdsourced data, which can profile more detailed layout information of the indoor space. We first reveal that existing systems can only generate inaccurate floor plans owning to the coarse-grained Wi-Fi reference information. Then, we utilize the increasingly popular BLE beacon nodes as the source of reference information, with which a series of dead-reckoning optimization and new schemes particularly for finer-grained indoor map construction are presented. We implement a prototype FineLoc system, which is deployed in around $11,000\;\mathrm{m}^2$11,000m2 areas. Our experimental results with the prototype show that FineLoc can achieve 80 percent localization errors within $1.6\;\mathrm{m}$1.6m, $1.4\;\mathrm{m}$1.4m, and $1.1\;\mathrm{m}$1.1m in the library, classroom building, and office building, respectively, with an average density of deployed BLE nodes less than $2.6/100\;\mathrm{m}^2$2.6/100m2.