Indoor mapping for location-based policy tooling using Bluetooth Low Energy beacons

Abstract

Most service providers and data owners desire to control the access to sensitive resources. The user may express restrictions, such as who can access the resources, at which point in time and from which location. However, the location requirement is difficult to achieve in an indoor environment. Determining user locations inside of buildings is based on a variety of solutions. Moreover, current access control solutions do not consider restricting access to sensitive data in indoor environments. This article presents a graphical web interface based on OpenStreetMap (OSM), called Indoor Mapping Web Interface (IMWI), which is designed to use indoor maps and floor plans of several real-world objects, such as hospitals, universities and other premises. By placing Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons inside buildings and by labeling them on digital indoor maps, the web interface back-end will provide the stored location data within an access control environment. Using the stored information will enable users to express indoor access control restrictions. Moreover, the IMWI enables and ensures the accurate determination of a user device location in indoor scenarios. By defining several scenarios the usability of the IMWI and the validity of the policies have been evaluated.