Performance Evaluation of Pedestrian Locations Based on Contemporary Smartphones

Abstract

Nowadays, a Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) unit is embedded in nearly every smartphone. This unit allows a smartphone to detect the user’s location and motion, and it makes functions, such as navigation, tracking, and compass applications, available to the user. Therefore, the GNSS unit has become one of the most important features in modern smartphones. However, because most smartphones incorporate relatively low-cost GNSS chips, their localization accuracy varies depending on the number of accessible GNSS satellites, and it is highly dependent on environmental factors that cause interference such as forests and buildings. This research evaluated the performance of the GNSS units inside two different models of smartphones in determining pedestrian locations in different environments. The results indicate that the overall performances of the two devices were related directly to the environment, type of smartphone/GNSS chipset, and the application used to collect the information.