Studies on indoor positioning algorithms using BLE Beacons

Abstract

Global positioning systems have become very popular, helping locate people and objects. Currently, with greater specificity, indoor location services are gaining more relevance. Despite the recent developments, the technology for indoor localization is still incipient, demanding better accuracy, lower costs, and greater practicality. Therefore, this paper presents a study of a technique for indoor localization with Bluetooth low-energy beacons. In addition, we propose and perform experiments to implement a low-cost, low-power, BLE-enabled device-based indoor positioning system. With such devices, we calculate the distance between the emitters and the receiver using known techniques and determine the user’s location. The results we obtained reduced the time and complexity of calibrating the offline phase of the systems. However, the accuracy of the localization is related to the accuracy of the distance estimation.