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Sensors and Sensing in Indoor Localization, Tracking, Navigation and Activity Monitoring

A special issue of Sensors (ISSN 1424-8220). This special issue belongs to the section "Sensor Networks".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 October 2017) | Viewed by 496408

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Department of Electronics, School of Engineering, University of Alcala, Campus Universitario s/n, 28805 Alcala de Henares, Madrid, Spain
Interests: ultrasonic signal processing; Local Positioning Systems (LPSs); mobile robots; electronic control, tracking and navigation; daily live monitoring; algorithm implementation on software and hardware
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Electronics, School of Engineering, University of Alcala, Campus Universitario s/n, E-28805 Alcala de Henares, Madrid, Spain
Interests: ultrasonic sensory systems; local positioning systems (LPSs); embedded systems; electronic design
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Universidad de Alcala, Alcala de Henares, Spain
Interests: body sensor networks; ambient intelligence for independent living; frailty analysis
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Indoor localization has become a key issue for emerging location-based applications (LBA) in many activity areas. Different technologies and strategies, sometimes including their fusion, compete and/or collaborate to provide a solution to the indoor localization problem. Most times, the selection of a certain system depends on the final application that imposes different constraints, such as accuracy, granularity, coverage area, ease of deployment, calibration and reconfiguration, cost, etc. Large-scale deployment of such location systems needs a network support for different aspects: availability and accessibility, configurability and scalability, privacy, security, etc. Definitely, this strategic topic will lead to technological innovations that have a great impact on the daily activities of people in the coming years, in areas such as health and independent living, home and building automation, leisure, security, etc.

This Special Issue is devoted to new research results and developments in the area of sensors and technologies for Indoor Localization Systems (ILS), which include RF, IR, ultrasonic, magnetic, optical, inertial or other particular systems, as well as the positioning strategies and algorithms, including sensor fusion and networking. As the final application may play an important role from the very initial stages of the system design and deployment, we are also interested in ILS applications, for instance in object tracking, navigation of robots or people, and activity monitoring.

Prof. Dr. Jesús Ureña
Dr. Álvaro Hernández Alonso
Dr. Juan Jesús García Domínguez
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • Sensors and technologies for Indoor Localization Systems (ILS)
  • Positioning strategies and algorithms; sensor fusion and networking.
  • System deployment and maintenance
  • Mobile Robot Navigation with ILS
  • Object tracking
  • People assistance and activity monitoring
  • Other ILS applications

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Published Papers (64 papers)

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25 pages, 6051 KiB  
Article
Dynamic Vertical Mapping with Crowdsourced Smartphone Sensor Data
by Georgios Pipelidis, Omid Reza Moslehi Rad, Dorota Iwaszczuk, Christian Prehofer and Urs Hugentobler
Sensors 2018, 18(2), 480; https://doi.org/10.3390/s18020480 - 6 Feb 2018
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 4899
Abstract
In this paper, we present our novel approach for the crowdsourced dynamic vertical mapping of buildings. For achieving this, we use the barometric sensor of smartphones to estimate altitude differences and the moment of the outdoor to indoor transition to extract reference pressure. [...] Read more.
In this paper, we present our novel approach for the crowdsourced dynamic vertical mapping of buildings. For achieving this, we use the barometric sensor of smartphones to estimate altitude differences and the moment of the outdoor to indoor transition to extract reference pressure. We have identified the outdoor–indoor transition (OITransition) via the fusion of four different sensors. Our approach has been evaluated extensively over a period of 6 months in different humidity, temperature, and cloud-coverage situations, as well as over different hours of the day, and it is found that it can always predict the correct number of floors, while it can approximate the altitude with an average error of 0.5 m. Full article
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21 pages, 4181 KiB  
Article
Collaborative Indoor Access Point Localization Using Autonomous Mobile Robot Swarm
by Fahed Awad, Muhammad Naserllah, Ammar Omar, Alaa Abu-Hantash and Abrar Al-Taj
Sensors 2018, 18(2), 407; https://doi.org/10.3390/s18020407 - 31 Jan 2018
Cited by 16 | Viewed by 6927
Abstract
Localization of access points has become an important research problem due to the wide range of applications it addresses such as dismantling critical security threats caused by rogue access points or optimizing wireless coverage of access points within a service area. Existing proposed [...] Read more.
Localization of access points has become an important research problem due to the wide range of applications it addresses such as dismantling critical security threats caused by rogue access points or optimizing wireless coverage of access points within a service area. Existing proposed solutions have mostly relied on theoretical hypotheses or computer simulation to demonstrate the efficiency of their methods. The techniques that rely on estimating the distance using samples of the received signal strength usually assume prior knowledge of the signal propagation characteristics of the indoor environment in hand and tend to take a relatively large number of uniformly distributed random samples. This paper presents an efficient and practical collaborative approach to detect the location of an access point in an indoor environment without any prior knowledge of the environment. The proposed approach comprises a swarm of wirelessly connected mobile robots that collaboratively and autonomously collect a relatively small number of non-uniformly distributed random samples of the access point’s received signal strength. These samples are used to efficiently and accurately estimate the location of the access point. The experimental testing verified that the proposed approach can identify the location of the access point in an accurate and efficient manner. Full article
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19 pages, 4440 KiB  
Article
EKF–GPR-Based Fingerprint Renovation for Subset-Based Indoor Localization with Adjusted Cosine Similarity
by Junhua Yang, Yong Li, Wei Cheng, Yang Liu and Chenxi Liu
Sensors 2018, 18(1), 318; https://doi.org/10.3390/s18010318 - 22 Jan 2018
Cited by 18 | Viewed by 6966
Abstract
Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) localization using fingerprint has become a prevailing approach for indoor localization. However, the fingerprint-collecting work is repetitive and time-consuming. After the original fingerprint radio map is built, it is laborious to upgrade the radio map. In this paper, [...] Read more.
Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) localization using fingerprint has become a prevailing approach for indoor localization. However, the fingerprint-collecting work is repetitive and time-consuming. After the original fingerprint radio map is built, it is laborious to upgrade the radio map. In this paper, we describe a Fingerprint Renovation System (FRS) based on crowdsourcing, which avoids the use of manual labour to obtain the up-to-date fingerprint status. Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) and Gaussian Process Regression (GPR) in FRS are combined to calculate the current state based on the original fingerprinting radio map. In this system, a method of subset acquisition also makes an immediate impression to reduce the huge computation caused by too many reference points (RPs). Meanwhile, adjusted cosine similarity (ACS) is employed in the online phase to solve the issue of outliers produced by cosine similarity. Both experiments and analytical simulation in a real Wireless Fidelity (Wi-Fi) environment indicate the usefulness of our system to significant performance improvements. The results show that FRS improves the accuracy by 19.6% in the surveyed area compared to the radio map un-renovated. Moreover, the proposed subset algorithm can bring less computation. Full article
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21 pages, 8051 KiB  
Article
An IMU-Aided Body-Shadowing Error Compensation Method for Indoor Bluetooth Positioning
by Zhongliang Deng, Xiao Fu and Hanhua Wang
Sensors 2018, 18(1), 304; https://doi.org/10.3390/s18010304 - 20 Jan 2018
Cited by 18 | Viewed by 5989
Abstract
Research on indoor positioning technologies has recently become a hotspot because of the huge social and economic potential of indoor location-based services (ILBS). Wireless positioning signals have a considerable attenuation in received signal strength (RSS) when transmitting through human bodies, which would cause [...] Read more.
Research on indoor positioning technologies has recently become a hotspot because of the huge social and economic potential of indoor location-based services (ILBS). Wireless positioning signals have a considerable attenuation in received signal strength (RSS) when transmitting through human bodies, which would cause significant ranging and positioning errors in RSS-based systems. This paper mainly focuses on the body-shadowing impairment of RSS-based ranging and positioning, and derives a mathematical expression of the relation between the body-shadowing effect and the positioning error. In addition, an inertial measurement unit-aided (IMU-aided) body-shadowing detection strategy is designed, and an error compensation model is established to mitigate the effect of body-shadowing. A Bluetooth positioning algorithm with body-shadowing error compensation (BP-BEC) is then proposed to improve both the positioning accuracy and the robustness in indoor body-shadowing environments. Experiments are conducted in two indoor test beds, and the performance of both the BP-BEC algorithm and the algorithms without body-shadowing error compensation (named no-BEC) is evaluated. The results show that the BP-BEC outperforms the no-BEC by about 60.1% and 73.6% in terms of positioning accuracy and robustness, respectively. Moreover, the execution time of the BP-BEC algorithm is also evaluated, and results show that the convergence speed of the proposed algorithm has an insignificant effect on real-time localization. Full article
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20 pages, 1699 KiB  
Article
Walking Distance Estimation Using Walking Canes with Inertial Sensors
by Duc Cong Dang and Young Soo Suh
Sensors 2018, 18(1), 230; https://doi.org/10.3390/s18010230 - 15 Jan 2018
Cited by 13 | Viewed by 6175
Abstract
A walking distance estimation algorithm for cane users is proposed using an inertial sensor unit attached to various positions on the cane. A standard inertial navigation algorithm using an indirect Kalman filter was applied to update the velocity and position of the cane [...] Read more.
A walking distance estimation algorithm for cane users is proposed using an inertial sensor unit attached to various positions on the cane. A standard inertial navigation algorithm using an indirect Kalman filter was applied to update the velocity and position of the cane during movement. For quadripod canes, a standard zero-velocity measurement-updating method is proposed. For standard canes, a velocity-updating method based on an inverted pendulum model is proposed. The proposed algorithms were verified by three walking experiments with two different types of canes and different positions of the sensor module. Full article
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11 pages, 4070 KiB  
Article
Closed-Form Algorithm for 3-D Near-Field OFDM Signal Localization under Uniform Circular Array
by Xiaolong Su, Zhen Liu, Xin Chen and Xizhang Wei
Sensors 2018, 18(1), 226; https://doi.org/10.3390/s18010226 - 14 Jan 2018
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 5655
Abstract
Due to its widespread application in communications, radar, etc., the orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) signal has become increasingly urgent in the field of localization. Under uniform circular array (UCA) and near-field conditions, this paper presents a closed-form algorithm based on phase difference [...] Read more.
Due to its widespread application in communications, radar, etc., the orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) signal has become increasingly urgent in the field of localization. Under uniform circular array (UCA) and near-field conditions, this paper presents a closed-form algorithm based on phase difference for estimating the three-dimensional (3-D) location (azimuth angle, elevation angle, and range) of the OFDM signal. In the algorithm, considering that it is difficult to distinguish the frequency of the OFDM signal’s subcarriers and the phase-based method is always affected by errors of the frequency estimation, this paper employs sparse representation (SR) to obtain the super-resolution frequencies and the corresponding phases of subcarriers. Further, as the phase differences of the adjacent sensors including azimuth angle, elevation angle and range parameters can be expressed as indefinite equations, the near-field OFDM signal’s 3-D location is obtained by employing the least square method, where the phase differences are based on the average of the estimated subcarriers. Finally, the performance of the proposed algorithm is demonstrated by several simulations. Full article
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14 pages, 3511 KiB  
Article
Plils: A Practical Indoor Localization System through Less Expensive Wireless Chips via Subregion Clustering
by Xiaolong Li, Yifu Yang, Jun Cai, Yun Deng, Junfeng Yang, Xinmin Zhou and Lina Tan
Sensors 2018, 18(1), 205; https://doi.org/10.3390/s18010205 - 12 Jan 2018
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 5096
Abstract
Reducing costs is a pragmatic method for promoting the widespread usage of indoor localization technology. Conventional indoor localization systems (ILSs) exploit relatively expensive wireless chips to measure received signal strength for positioning. Our work is based on a cheap and widely-used commercial off-the-shelf [...] Read more.
Reducing costs is a pragmatic method for promoting the widespread usage of indoor localization technology. Conventional indoor localization systems (ILSs) exploit relatively expensive wireless chips to measure received signal strength for positioning. Our work is based on a cheap and widely-used commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) wireless chip, i.e., the Nordic Semiconductor nRF24LE1, which has only several output power levels, and proposes a new power level based-ILS, called Plils. The localization procedure incorporates two phases: an offline training phase and an online localization phase. In the offline training phase, a self-organizing map (SOM) is utilized for dividing a target area into k subregions, wherein their grids in the same subregion have similar fingerprints. In the online localization phase, the support vector machine (SVM) and back propagation (BP) neural network methods are adopted to identify which subregion a tagged object is located in, and calculate its exact location, respectively. The reasonable value for k has been discussed as well. Our experiments show that Plils achieves 75 cm accuracy on average, and is robust to indoor obstacles. Full article
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20 pages, 6717 KiB  
Article
Experimental Evaluation of UWB Indoor Positioning for Sport Postures
by Matteo Ridolfi, Stef Vandermeeren, Jense Defraye, Heidi Steendam, Joeri Gerlo, Dirk De Clercq, Jeroen Hoebeke and Eli De Poorter
Sensors 2018, 18(1), 168; https://doi.org/10.3390/s18010168 - 9 Jan 2018
Cited by 100 | Viewed by 9543
Abstract
Radio frequency (RF)-based indoor positioning systems (IPSs) use wireless technologies (including Wi-Fi, Zigbee, Bluetooth, and ultra-wide band (UWB)) to estimate the location of persons in areas where no Global Positioning System (GPS) reception is available, for example in indoor stadiums or sports halls. [...] Read more.
Radio frequency (RF)-based indoor positioning systems (IPSs) use wireless technologies (including Wi-Fi, Zigbee, Bluetooth, and ultra-wide band (UWB)) to estimate the location of persons in areas where no Global Positioning System (GPS) reception is available, for example in indoor stadiums or sports halls. Of the above-mentioned forms of radio frequency (RF) technology, UWB is considered one of the most accurate approaches because it can provide positioning estimates with centimeter-level accuracy. However, it is not yet known whether UWB can also offer such accurate position estimates during strenuous dynamic activities in which moves are characterized by fast changes in direction and velocity. To answer this question, this paper investigates the capabilities of UWB indoor localization systems for tracking athletes during their complex (and most of the time unpredictable) movements. To this end, we analyze the impact of on-body tag placement locations and human movement patterns on localization accuracy and communication reliability. Moreover, two localization algorithms (particle filter and Kalman filter) with different optimizations (bias removal, non-line-of-sight (NLoS) detection, and path determination) are implemented. It is shown that although the optimal choice of optimization depends on the type of movement patterns, some of the improvements can reduce the localization error by up to 31%. Overall, depending on the selected optimization and on-body tag placement, our algorithms show good results in terms of positioning accuracy, with average errors in position estimates of 20 cm. This makes UWB a suitable approach for tracking dynamic athletic activities. Full article
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19 pages, 4872 KiB  
Article
Accurate 3D Positioning for a Mobile Platform in Non-Line-of-Sight Scenarios Based on IMU/Magnetometer Sensor Fusion
by Hendrik Hellmers, Zakaria Kasmi, Abdelmoumen Norrdine and Andreas Eichhorn
Sensors 2018, 18(1), 126; https://doi.org/10.3390/s18010126 - 4 Jan 2018
Cited by 21 | Viewed by 7489
Abstract
In recent years, a variety of real-time applications benefit from services provided by localization systems due to the advent of sensing and communication technologies. Since the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) enables localization only outside buildings, applications for indoor positioning and navigation use [...] Read more.
In recent years, a variety of real-time applications benefit from services provided by localization systems due to the advent of sensing and communication technologies. Since the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) enables localization only outside buildings, applications for indoor positioning and navigation use alternative technologies. Ultra Wide Band Signals (UWB), Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN), ultrasonic or infrared are common examples. However, these technologies suffer from fading and multipath effects caused by objects and materials in the building. In contrast, magnetic fields are able to pass through obstacles without significant propagation errors, i.e. in Non-Line of Sight Scenarios (NLoS). The aim of this work is to propose a novel indoor positioning system based on artificially generated magnetic fields in combination with Inertial Measurement Units (IMUs). In order to reach a better coverage, multiple coils are used as reference points. A basic algorithm for three-dimensional applications is demonstrated as well as evaluated in this article. The established system is then realized by a sensor fusion principle as well as a kinematic motion model on the basis of a Kalman filter. Furthermore, a pressure sensor is used in combination with an adaptive filtering method to reliably estimate the platform’s altitude. Full article
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2366 KiB  
Article
3D Indoor Positioning of UAVs with Spread Spectrum Ultrasound and Time-of-Flight Cameras
by José A. Paredes, Fernando J. Álvarez, Teodoro Aguilera and José M. Villadangos
Sensors 2018, 18(1), 89; https://doi.org/10.3390/s18010089 - 30 Dec 2017
Cited by 77 | Viewed by 10862
Abstract
This work proposes the use of a hybrid acoustic and optical indoor positioning system for the accurate 3D positioning of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). The acoustic module of this system is based on a Time-Code Division Multiple Access (T-CDMA) scheme, where the sequential [...] Read more.
This work proposes the use of a hybrid acoustic and optical indoor positioning system for the accurate 3D positioning of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). The acoustic module of this system is based on a Time-Code Division Multiple Access (T-CDMA) scheme, where the sequential emission of five spread spectrum ultrasonic codes is performed to compute the horizontal vehicle position following a 2D multilateration procedure. The optical module is based on a Time-Of-Flight (TOF) camera that provides an initial estimation for the vehicle height. A recursive algorithm programmed on an external computer is then proposed to refine the estimated position. Experimental results show that the proposed system can increase the accuracy of a solely acoustic system by 70–80% in terms of positioning mean square error. Full article
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5217 KiB  
Article
A Large-Scale Multi-Hop Localization Algorithm Based on Regularized Extreme Learning for Wireless Networks
by Wei Zheng, Xiaoyong Yan, Wei Zhao and Chengshan Qian
Sensors 2017, 17(12), 2959; https://doi.org/10.3390/s17122959 - 20 Dec 2017
Cited by 9 | Viewed by 4712
Abstract
A novel large-scale multi-hop localization algorithm based on regularized extreme learning is proposed in this paper. The large-scale multi-hop localization problem is formulated as a learning problem. Unlike other similar localization algorithms, the proposed algorithm overcomes the shortcoming of the traditional algorithms which [...] Read more.
A novel large-scale multi-hop localization algorithm based on regularized extreme learning is proposed in this paper. The large-scale multi-hop localization problem is formulated as a learning problem. Unlike other similar localization algorithms, the proposed algorithm overcomes the shortcoming of the traditional algorithms which are only applicable to an isotropic network, therefore has a strong adaptability to the complex deployment environment. The proposed algorithm is composed of three stages: data acquisition, modeling and location estimation. In data acquisition stage, the training information between nodes of the given network is collected. In modeling stage, the model among the hop-counts and the physical distances between nodes is constructed using regularized extreme learning. In location estimation stage, each node finds its specific location in a distributed manner. Theoretical analysis and several experiments show that the proposed algorithm can adapt to the different topological environments with low computational cost. Furthermore, high accuracy can be achieved by this method without setting complex parameters. Full article
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8245 KiB  
Article
A Bluetooth Low Energy Indoor Positioning System with Channel Diversity, Weighted Trilateration and Kalman Filtering
by Vicente Cantón Paterna, Anna Calveras Augé, Josep Paradells Aspas and María Alejandra Pérez Bullones
Sensors 2017, 17(12), 2927; https://doi.org/10.3390/s17122927 - 16 Dec 2017
Cited by 181 | Viewed by 15087
Abstract
Indoor Positioning Systems (IPS) using Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) technology are currently becoming real and available, which has made them grow in popularity and use. However, there are still plenty of challenges related to this technology, especially in terms of Received Signal Strength [...] Read more.
Indoor Positioning Systems (IPS) using Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) technology are currently becoming real and available, which has made them grow in popularity and use. However, there are still plenty of challenges related to this technology, especially in terms of Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) fluctuations due to the behaviour of the channels and the multipath effect, that lead to poor precision. In order to mitigate these effects, in this paper we propose and implement a real Indoor Positioning System based on Bluetooth Low Energy, that improves accuracy while reducing power consumption and costs. The three main proposals are: frequency diversity, Kalman filtering and a trilateration method what we have denominated “weighted trilateration”. The analysis of the results proves that all the proposals improve the precision of the system, which goes up to 1.82 m 90% of the time for a device moving in a middle-size room and 0.7 m for static devices. Furthermore, we have proved that the system is scalable and efficient in terms of cost and power consumption. The implemented approach allows using a very simple device (like a SensorTag) on the items to locate. The system enables a very low density of anchor points or references and with a precision better than existing solutions. Full article
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4504 KiB  
Article
Early Steps in Automated Behavior Mapping via Indoor Sensors
by Taner Arsan and Orcun Kepez
Sensors 2017, 17(12), 2925; https://doi.org/10.3390/s17122925 - 16 Dec 2017
Cited by 10 | Viewed by 8467
Abstract
Behavior mapping (BM) is a spatial data collection technique in which the locational and behavioral information of a user is noted on a plan layout of the studied environment. Among many indoor positioning technologies, we chose Wi-Fi, BLE beacon and ultra-wide band (UWB) [...] Read more.
Behavior mapping (BM) is a spatial data collection technique in which the locational and behavioral information of a user is noted on a plan layout of the studied environment. Among many indoor positioning technologies, we chose Wi-Fi, BLE beacon and ultra-wide band (UWB) sensor technologies for their popularity and investigated their applicability in BM. We tested three technologies for error ranges and found an average error of 1.39 m for Wi-Fi in a 36 m2 test area (6 m × 6 m), 0.86 m for the BLE beacon in a 37.44 m2 test area (9.6 m × 3.9 m) and 0.24 m for ultra-wide band sensors in a 36 m2 test area (6 m × 6 m). We simulated the applicability of these error ranges for real-time locations by using a behavioral dataset collected from an active learning classroom. We used two UWB tags simultaneously by incorporating a custom-designed ceiling system in a new 39.76 m2 test area (7.35 m × 5.41 m). We considered 26 observation points and collected data for 180 s for each point (total 4680) with an average error of 0.2072 m for 23 points inside the test area. Finally, we demonstrated the use of ultra-wide band sensor technology for BM. Full article
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9330 KiB  
Article
Scene Recognition for Indoor Localization Using a Multi-Sensor Fusion Approach
by Mengyun Liu, Ruizhi Chen, Deren Li, Yujin Chen, Guangyi Guo, Zhipeng Cao and Yuanjin Pan
Sensors 2017, 17(12), 2847; https://doi.org/10.3390/s17122847 - 8 Dec 2017
Cited by 64 | Viewed by 8659
Abstract
After decades of research, there is still no solution for indoor localization like the GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) solution for outdoor environments. The major reasons for this phenomenon are the complex spatial topology and RF transmission environment. To deal with these problems, [...] Read more.
After decades of research, there is still no solution for indoor localization like the GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) solution for outdoor environments. The major reasons for this phenomenon are the complex spatial topology and RF transmission environment. To deal with these problems, an indoor scene constrained method for localization is proposed in this paper, which is inspired by the visual cognition ability of the human brain and the progress in the computer vision field regarding high-level image understanding. Furthermore, a multi-sensor fusion method is implemented on a commercial smartphone including cameras, WiFi and inertial sensors. Compared to former research, the camera on a smartphone is used to “see” which scene the user is in. With this information, a particle filter algorithm constrained by scene information is adopted to determine the final location. For indoor scene recognition, we take advantage of deep learning that has been proven to be highly effective in the computer vision community. For particle filter, both WiFi and magnetic field signals are used to update the weights of particles. Similar to other fingerprinting localization methods, there are two stages in the proposed system, offline training and online localization. In the offline stage, an indoor scene model is trained by Caffe (one of the most popular open source frameworks for deep learning) and a fingerprint database is constructed by user trajectories in different scenes. To reduce the volume requirement of training data for deep learning, a fine-tuned method is adopted for model training. In the online stage, a camera in a smartphone is used to recognize the initial scene. Then a particle filter algorithm is used to fuse the sensor data and determine the final location. To prove the effectiveness of the proposed method, an Android client and a web server are implemented. The Android client is used to collect data and locate a user. The web server is developed for indoor scene model training and communication with an Android client. To evaluate the performance, comparison experiments are conducted and the results demonstrate that a positioning accuracy of 1.32 m at 95% is achievable with the proposed solution. Both positioning accuracy and robustness are enhanced compared to approaches without scene constraint including commercial products such as IndoorAtlas. Full article
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14406 KiB  
Article
A Robust Indoor/Outdoor Navigation Filter Fusing Data from Vision and Magneto-Inertial Measurement Unit
by David Caruso, Alexandre Eudes, Martial Sanfourche, David Vissière and Guy Le Besnerais
Sensors 2017, 17(12), 2795; https://doi.org/10.3390/s17122795 - 4 Dec 2017
Cited by 19 | Viewed by 5356
Abstract
Visual-inertial Navigation Systems (VINS) are nowadays used for robotic or augmented reality applications. They aim to compute the motion of the robot or the pedestrian in an environment that is unknown and does not have specific localization infrastructure. Because of the low quality [...] Read more.
Visual-inertial Navigation Systems (VINS) are nowadays used for robotic or augmented reality applications. They aim to compute the motion of the robot or the pedestrian in an environment that is unknown and does not have specific localization infrastructure. Because of the low quality of inertial sensors that can be used reasonably for these two applications, state of the art VINS rely heavily on the visual information to correct at high frequency the drift of inertial sensors integration. These methods struggle when environment does not provide usable visual features, such than in low-light of texture-less areas. In the last few years, some work have been focused on using an array of magnetometers to exploit opportunistic stationary magnetic disturbances available indoor in order to deduce a velocity. This led to Magneto-inertial Dead-reckoning (MI-DR) systems that show interesting performance in their nominal conditions, even if they can be defeated when the local magnetic gradient is too low, for example outdoor. We propose in this work to fuse the information from a monocular camera with the MI-DR technique to increase the robustness of both traditional VINS and MI-DR itself. We use an inverse square root filter inspired by the MSCKF algorithm and describe its structure thoroughly in this paper. We show navigation results on a real dataset captured by a sensor fusing a commercial-grade camera with our custom MIMU (Magneto-inertial Measurment Unit) sensor. The fused estimate demonstrates higher robustness compared to pure VINS estimate, specially in areas where vision is non informative. These results could ultimately increase the working domain of mobile augmented reality systems. Full article
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7838 KiB  
Article
A Pseudorange Measurement Scheme Based on Snapshot for Base Station Positioning Receivers
by Jun Mo, Zhongliang Deng, Buyun Jia and Xinmei Bian
Sensors 2017, 17(12), 2783; https://doi.org/10.3390/s17122783 - 1 Dec 2017
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 4463
Abstract
Digital multimedia broadcasting signal is promised to be a wireless positioning signal. This paper mainly studies a multimedia broadcasting technology, named China mobile multimedia broadcasting (CMMB), in the context of positioning. Theoretical and practical analysis on the CMMB signal suggests that the existing [...] Read more.
Digital multimedia broadcasting signal is promised to be a wireless positioning signal. This paper mainly studies a multimedia broadcasting technology, named China mobile multimedia broadcasting (CMMB), in the context of positioning. Theoretical and practical analysis on the CMMB signal suggests that the existing CMMB signal does not have the meter positioning capability. So, the CMMB system has been modified to achieve meter positioning capability by multiplexing the CMMB signal and pseudo codes in the same frequency band. The time difference of arrival (TDOA) estimation method is used in base station positioning receivers. Due to the influence of a complex fading channel and the limited bandwidth of receivers, the regular tracking method based on pseudo code ranging is difficult to provide continuous and accurate TDOA estimations. A pseudorange measurement scheme based on snapshot is proposed to solve the problem. This algorithm extracts the TDOA estimation from the stored signal fragments, and utilizes the Taylor expansion of the autocorrelation function to improve the TDOA estimation accuracy. Monte Carlo simulations and real data tests show that the proposed algorithm can significantly reduce the TDOA estimation error for base station positioning receivers, and then the modified CMMB system achieves meter positioning accuracy. Full article
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7765 KiB  
Article
Analysis of Sources of Large Positioning Errors in Deterministic Fingerprinting
by Joaquín Torres-Sospedra and Adriano Moreira
Sensors 2017, 17(12), 2736; https://doi.org/10.3390/s17122736 - 27 Nov 2017
Cited by 43 | Viewed by 7486
Abstract
Wi-Fi fingerprinting is widely used for indoor positioning and indoor navigation due to the ubiquity of wireless networks, high proliferation of Wi-Fi-enabled mobile devices, and its reasonable positioning accuracy. The assumption is that the position can be estimated based on the received signal [...] Read more.
Wi-Fi fingerprinting is widely used for indoor positioning and indoor navigation due to the ubiquity of wireless networks, high proliferation of Wi-Fi-enabled mobile devices, and its reasonable positioning accuracy. The assumption is that the position can be estimated based on the received signal strength intensity from multiple wireless access points at a given point. The positioning accuracy, within a few meters, enables the use of Wi-Fi fingerprinting in many different applications. However, it has been detected that the positioning error might be very large in a few cases, which might prevent its use in applications with high accuracy positioning requirements. Hybrid methods are the new trend in indoor positioning since they benefit from multiple diverse technologies (Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Inertial Sensors, among many others) and, therefore, they can provide a more robust positioning accuracy. In order to have an optimal combination of technologies, it is crucial to identify when large errors occur and prevent the use of extremely bad positioning estimations in hybrid algorithms. This paper investigates why large positioning errors occur in Wi-Fi fingerprinting and how to detect them by using the received signal strength intensities. Full article
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7001 KiB  
Article
A 2.5D Map-Based Mobile Robot Localization via Cooperation of Aerial and Ground Robots
by Tae Hyeon Nam, Jae Hong Shim and Young Im Cho
Sensors 2017, 17(12), 2730; https://doi.org/10.3390/s17122730 - 25 Nov 2017
Cited by 25 | Viewed by 10341
Abstract
Recently, there has been increasing interest in studying the task coordination of aerial and ground robots. When a robot begins navigation in an unknown area, it has no information about the surrounding environment. Accordingly, for robots to perform tasks based on location information, [...] Read more.
Recently, there has been increasing interest in studying the task coordination of aerial and ground robots. When a robot begins navigation in an unknown area, it has no information about the surrounding environment. Accordingly, for robots to perform tasks based on location information, they need a simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) process that uses sensor information to draw a map of the environment, while simultaneously estimating the current location of the robot on the map. This paper aims to present a localization method based in cooperation between aerial and ground robots in an indoor environment. The proposed method allows a ground robot to reach accurate destination by using a 2.5D elevation map built by a low-cost RGB-D (Red Green and Blue-Depth) sensor and 2D Laser sensor attached onto an aerial robot. A 2.5D elevation map is formed by projecting height information of an obstacle using depth information obtained by the RGB-D sensor onto a grid map, which is generated by using the 2D Laser sensor and scan matching. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method for its accuracy in location recognition and computing speed. Full article
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3289 KiB  
Article
Constructing an Indoor Floor Plan Using Crowdsourcing Based on Magnetic Fingerprinting
by Haiyong Luo, Fang Zhao, Mengling Jiang, Hao Ma and Yuexia Zhang
Sensors 2017, 17(11), 2678; https://doi.org/10.3390/s17112678 - 20 Nov 2017
Cited by 49 | Viewed by 6684
Abstract
A large number of indoor positioning systems have recently been developed to cater for various location-based services. Indoor maps are a prerequisite of such indoor positioning systems; however, indoor maps are currently non-existent for most indoor environments. Construction of an indoor map by [...] Read more.
A large number of indoor positioning systems have recently been developed to cater for various location-based services. Indoor maps are a prerequisite of such indoor positioning systems; however, indoor maps are currently non-existent for most indoor environments. Construction of an indoor map by external experts excludes quick deployment and prevents widespread utilization of indoor localization systems. Here, we propose an algorithm for the automatic construction of an indoor floor plan, together with a magnetic fingerprint map of unmapped buildings using crowdsourced smartphone data. For floor plan construction, our system combines the use of dead reckoning technology, an observation model with geomagnetic signals, and trajectory fusion based on an affinity propagation algorithm. To obtain the indoor paths, the magnetic trajectory data obtained through crowdsourcing were first clustered using dynamic time warping similarity criteria. The trajectories were inferred from odometry tracing, and those belonging to the same cluster in the magnetic trajectory domain were then fused. Fusing these data effectively eliminates the inherent tracking errors originating from noisy sensors; as a result, we obtained highly accurate indoor paths. One advantage of our system is that no additional hardware such as a laser rangefinder or wheel encoder is required. Experimental results demonstrate that our proposed algorithm successfully constructs indoor floor plans with 0.48 m accuracy, which could benefit location-based services which lack indoor maps. Full article
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1522 KiB  
Article
Local Homing Navigation Based on the Moment Model for Landmark Distribution and Features
by Changmin Lee and DaeEun Kim
Sensors 2017, 17(11), 2658; https://doi.org/10.3390/s17112658 - 17 Nov 2017
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 4381
Abstract
[-10]For local homing navigation, an agent is supposed to return home based on the surrounding environmental information. According to the snapshot model, the home snapshot and the current view are compared to determine the homing direction. In this paper, we propose a novel [...] Read more.
[-10]For local homing navigation, an agent is supposed to return home based on the surrounding environmental information. According to the snapshot model, the home snapshot and the current view are compared to determine the homing direction. In this paper, we propose a novel homing navigation method using the moment model. The suggested moment model also follows the snapshot theory to compare the home snapshot and the current view, but the moment model defines a moment of landmark inertia as the sum of the product of the feature of the landmark particle with the square of its distance. The method thus uses range values of landmarks in the surrounding view and the visual features. The center of the moment can be estimated as the reference point, which is the unique convergence point in the moment potential from any view. The homing vector can easily be extracted from the centers of the moment measured at the current position and the home location. The method effectively guides homing direction in real environments, as well as in the simulation environment. In this paper, we take a holistic approach to use all pixels in the panoramic image as landmarks and use the RGB color intensity for the visual features in the moment model in which a set of three moment functions is encoded to determine the homing vector. We also tested visual homing or the moment model with only visual features, but the suggested moment model with both the visual feature and the landmark distance shows superior performance. We demonstrate homing performance with various methods classified by the status of the feature, the distance and the coordinate alignment. Full article
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3230 KiB  
Article
Visual Positioning Indoors: Human Eyes vs. Smartphone Cameras
by Dewen Wu, Ruizhi Chen and Liang Chen
Sensors 2017, 17(11), 2645; https://doi.org/10.3390/s17112645 - 16 Nov 2017
Cited by 13 | Viewed by 5314
Abstract
Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies and their related applications are now developing at a rapid pace. Indoor positioning will be one of the core technologies that enable AI applications because people spend 80% of their time indoors. Humans can locate themselves related to a [...] Read more.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies and their related applications are now developing at a rapid pace. Indoor positioning will be one of the core technologies that enable AI applications because people spend 80% of their time indoors. Humans can locate themselves related to a visually well-defined object, e.g., a door, based on their visual observations. Can a smartphone camera do a similar job when it points to an object? In this paper, a visual positioning solution was developed based on a single image captured from a smartphone camera pointing to a well-defined object. The smartphone camera simulates the process of human eyes for the purpose of relatively locating themselves against a well-defined object. Extensive experiments were conducted with five types of smartphones on three different indoor settings, including a meeting room, a library, and a reading room. Experimental results shown that the average positioning accuracy of the solution based on five smartphone cameras is 30.6 cm, while that for the human-observed solution with 300 samples from 10 different people is 73.1 cm. Full article
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5419 KiB  
Article
I-DWRL: Improved Dual Wireless Radio Localization Using Magnetometer
by Abdul Aziz, Ramesh Kumar and Inwhee Joe
Sensors 2017, 17(11), 2630; https://doi.org/10.3390/s17112630 - 15 Nov 2017
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 3815
Abstract
In the dual wireless radio localization (DWRL) technique each sensor node is equipped with two ultra-wide band (UWB) radios; the distance between the two radios is a few tens of centimeters. For localization, the DWRL technique must use at least two pre-localized nodes [...] Read more.
In the dual wireless radio localization (DWRL) technique each sensor node is equipped with two ultra-wide band (UWB) radios; the distance between the two radios is a few tens of centimeters. For localization, the DWRL technique must use at least two pre-localized nodes to fully localize an unlocalized node. Moreover, in the DWRL technique it is also not possible for two sensor nodes to properly communicate location information unless each of the four UWB radios of two communicating sensor nodes cannot approach the remaining three radios. In this paper, we propose an improved DWRL (I-DWRL) algorithm along with mounting a magnetometer sensor on one of the UWB radios of all sensor nodes. This addition of a magnetometer helps to improve DWRL algorithm such that only one localized sensor node is required for the localization of an unlocalized sensor node, and localization can also be achieved even when some of the four radios of two nodes are unable to communicate with the remaining three radios. The results show that with the use of a magnetometer a greater number of nodes can be localized with a smaller transmission range, less energy and a shorter period of time. In comparison with the conventional DWRL algorithm, our I-DWRL not only maintains the localization error but also requires around half of semi-localizations, 60% of the time, 70% of the energy and a shorter communication range to fully localize an entire network. Moreover, I-DWRL can even localize more nodes while transmission range is not sufficient for DWRL algorithm. Full article
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4621 KiB  
Article
A Robust High-Accuracy Ultrasound Indoor Positioning System Based on a Wireless Sensor Network
by Jun Qi and Guo-Ping Liu
Sensors 2017, 17(11), 2554; https://doi.org/10.3390/s17112554 - 6 Nov 2017
Cited by 112 | Viewed by 12192
Abstract
This paper describes the development and implementation of a robust high-accuracy ultrasonic indoor positioning system (UIPS). The UIPS consists of several wireless ultrasonic beacons in the indoor environment. Each of them has a fixed and known position coordinate and can collect all the [...] Read more.
This paper describes the development and implementation of a robust high-accuracy ultrasonic indoor positioning system (UIPS). The UIPS consists of several wireless ultrasonic beacons in the indoor environment. Each of them has a fixed and known position coordinate and can collect all the transmissions from the target node or emit ultrasonic signals. Every wireless sensor network (WSN) node has two communication modules: one is WiFi, that transmits the data to the server, and the other is the radio frequency (RF) module, which is only used for time synchronization between different nodes, with accuracy up to 1 μs. The distance between the beacon and the target node is calculated by measuring the time-of-flight (TOF) for the ultrasonic signal, and then the position of the target is computed by some distances and the coordinate of the beacons. TOF estimation is the most important technique in the UIPS. A new time domain method to extract the envelope of the ultrasonic signals is presented in order to estimate the TOF. This method, with the envelope detection filter, estimates the value with the sampled values on both sides based on the least squares method (LSM). The simulation results show that the method can achieve envelope detection with a good filtering effect by means of the LSM. The highest precision and variance can reach 0.61 mm and 0.23 mm, respectively, in pseudo-range measurements with UIPS. A maximum location error of 10.2 mm is achieved in the positioning experiments for a moving robot, when UIPS works on the line-of-sight (LOS) signal. Full article
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2588 KiB  
Article
Comparison of Measurement Models for 3D Magnetic Localization and Tracking
by Guido De Angelis, Alessio De Angelis, Antonio Moschitta and Paolo Carbone
Sensors 2017, 17(11), 2527; https://doi.org/10.3390/s17112527 - 3 Nov 2017
Cited by 35 | Viewed by 5396
Abstract
In this paper, we consider magnetic positioning and tracking of objects and provide a comparison of the characteristics of two major measurement models: the magnetic dipole model and the mutual inductance model. The numerical results obtained by applying these models to a short-range [...] Read more.
In this paper, we consider magnetic positioning and tracking of objects and provide a comparison of the characteristics of two major measurement models: the magnetic dipole model and the mutual inductance model. The numerical results obtained by applying these models to a short-range position measurement application, with a maximum operating distance of approximately 50 cm, are compared. Based on the results of this comparison, a prototype 9-sensor array is developed, experimental tests are performed, and extensive measurement results are presented. Outcomes show the feasibility of tracking the position and orientation of a mobile coil in real time with a median positioning error below 1 cm and a worst-case error of about 2 cm and 11 degrees inside a spatial region of 30 × 30 × 30 cm3 operational volume. Full article
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6491 KiB  
Article
Local Positioning System Using Flickering Infrared LEDs
by Thibaut Raharijaona, Rodolphe Mawonou, Thanh Vu Nguyen, Fabien Colonnier, Marc Boyron, Julien Diperi and Stéphane Viollet
Sensors 2017, 17(11), 2518; https://doi.org/10.3390/s17112518 - 3 Nov 2017
Cited by 38 | Viewed by 11145
Abstract
A minimalistic optical sensing device for the indoor localization is proposed to estimate the relative position between the sensor and active markers using amplitude modulated infrared light. The innovative insect-based sensor can measure azimuth and elevation angles with respect to two small and [...] Read more.
A minimalistic optical sensing device for the indoor localization is proposed to estimate the relative position between the sensor and active markers using amplitude modulated infrared light. The innovative insect-based sensor can measure azimuth and elevation angles with respect to two small and cheap active infrared light emitting diodes (LEDs) flickering at two different frequencies. In comparison to a previous lensless visual sensor that we proposed for proximal localization (less than 30 cm), we implemented: (i) a minimalistic sensor in terms of small size (10 cm 3 ), light weight (6 g) and low power consumption (0.4 W); (ii) an Arduino-compatible demodulator for fast analog signal processing requiring low computational resources; and (iii) an indoor positioning system for a mobile robotic application. Our results confirmed that the proposed sensor was able to estimate the position at a distance of 2 m with an accuracy as small as 2-cm at a sampling frequency of 100 Hz. Our sensor can be also suitable to be implemented in a position feedback loop for indoor robotic applications in GPS-denied environment. Full article
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923 KiB  
Article
Indoor Multipath Assisted Angle of Arrival Localization
by Stijn Wielandt and Lieven De Strycker
Sensors 2017, 17(11), 2522; https://doi.org/10.3390/s17112522 - 2 Nov 2017
Cited by 73 | Viewed by 9015
Abstract
Indoor radio frequency positioning systems enable a broad range of location aware applications. However, the localization accuracy is often impaired by Non-Line-Of-Sight (NLOS) connections and indoor multipath effects. An interesting evolution in widely deployed communication systems is the transition to multi-antenna devices with [...] Read more.
Indoor radio frequency positioning systems enable a broad range of location aware applications. However, the localization accuracy is often impaired by Non-Line-Of-Sight (NLOS) connections and indoor multipath effects. An interesting evolution in widely deployed communication systems is the transition to multi-antenna devices with beamforming capabilities. These properties form an opportunity for localization methods based on Angle of Arrival (AoA) estimation. This work investigates how multipath propagation can be exploited to enhance the accuracy of AoA localization systems. The presented multipath assisted method resembles a fingerprinting approach, matching an AoA measurement vector to a set of reference vectors. However, reference data is not generated by labor intensive site surveying. Instead, a ray tracer is used, relying on a-priori known floor plan information. The resulting algorithm requires only one fixed receiving antenna array to determine the position of a mobile transmitter in a room. The approach is experimentally evaluated in LOS and NLOS conditions, providing insights in the accuracy and robustness. The measurements are performed in various indoor environments with different hardware configurations. This leads to the conclusion that the proposed system yields a considerable accuracy improvement over common narrowband AoA positioning methods, as well as a reduction of setup efforts in comparison to conventional fingerprinting systems. Full article
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3393 KiB  
Article
Model-Based Localization and Tracking Using Bluetooth Low-Energy Beacons
by F. Serhan Daniş and Ali Taylan Cemgil
Sensors 2017, 17(11), 2484; https://doi.org/10.3390/s17112484 - 29 Oct 2017
Cited by 78 | Viewed by 8975
Abstract
We introduce a high precision localization and tracking method that makes use of cheap Bluetooth low-energy (BLE) beacons only. We track the position of a moving sensor by integrating highly unreliable and noisy BLE observations streaming from multiple locations. A novel aspect of [...] Read more.
We introduce a high precision localization and tracking method that makes use of cheap Bluetooth low-energy (BLE) beacons only. We track the position of a moving sensor by integrating highly unreliable and noisy BLE observations streaming from multiple locations. A novel aspect of our approach is the development of an observation model, specifically tailored for received signal strength indicator (RSSI) fingerprints: a combination based on the optimal transport model of Wasserstein distance. The tracking results of the entire system are compared with alternative baseline estimation methods, such as nearest neighboring fingerprints and an artificial neural network. Our results show that highly accurate estimation from noisy Bluetooth data is practically feasible with an observation model based on Wasserstein distance interpolation combined with the sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) method for tracking. Full article
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7280 KiB  
Article
An Improved Indoor Positioning System Using RGB-D Cameras and Wireless Networks for Use in Complex Environments
by Jaime Duque Domingo, Carlos Cerrada, Enrique Valero and Jose A. Cerrada
Sensors 2017, 17(10), 2391; https://doi.org/10.3390/s17102391 - 20 Oct 2017
Cited by 25 | Viewed by 13691
Abstract
This work presents an Indoor Positioning System to estimate the location of people navigating in complex indoor environments. The developed technique combines WiFi Positioning Systems and depth maps, delivering promising results in complex inhabited environments, consisting of various connected rooms, where people [...] Read more.
This work presents an Indoor Positioning System to estimate the location of people navigating in complex indoor environments. The developed technique combines WiFi Positioning Systems and depth maps, delivering promising results in complex inhabited environments, consisting of various connected rooms, where people are freely moving. This is a non-intrusive system in which personal information about subjects is not needed and, although RGB-D cameras are installed in the sensing area, users are only required to carry their smart-phones. In this article, the methods developed to combine the above-mentioned technologies and the experiments performed to test the system are detailed. The obtained results show a significant improvement in terms of accuracy and performance with respect to previous WiFi-based solutions as well as an extension in the range of operation. Full article
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18229 KiB  
Article
Comparing the Performance of Indoor Localization Systems through the EvAAL Framework
by Francesco Potortì, Sangjoon Park, Antonio Ramón Jiménez Ruiz, Paolo Barsocchi, Michele Girolami, Antonino Crivello, So Yeon Lee, Jae Hyun Lim, Joaquín Torres-Sospedra, Fernando Seco, Raul Montoliu, Germán Martin Mendoza-Silva, Maria Del Carmen Pérez Rubio, Cristina Losada-Gutiérrez, Felipe Espinosa and Javier Macias-Guarasa
Sensors 2017, 17(10), 2327; https://doi.org/10.3390/s17102327 - 13 Oct 2017
Cited by 75 | Viewed by 10116
Abstract
In recent years, indoor localization systems have been the object of significant research activity and of growing interest for their great expected social impact and their impressive business potential. Application areas include tracking and navigation, activity monitoring, personalized advertising, Active and Assisted Living [...] Read more.
In recent years, indoor localization systems have been the object of significant research activity and of growing interest for their great expected social impact and their impressive business potential. Application areas include tracking and navigation, activity monitoring, personalized advertising, Active and Assisted Living (AAL), traceability, Internet of Things (IoT) networks, and Home-land Security. In spite of the numerous research advances and the great industrial interest, no canned solutions have yet been defined. The diversity and heterogeneity of applications, scenarios, sensor and user requirements, make it difficult to create uniform solutions. From that diverse reality, a main problem is derived that consists in the lack of a consensus both in terms of the metrics and the procedures used to measure the performance of the different indoor localization and navigation proposals. This paper introduces the general lines of the EvAAL benchmarking framework, which is aimed at a fair comparison of indoor positioning systems through a challenging competition under complex, realistic conditions. To evaluate the framework capabilities, we show how it was used in the 2016 Indoor Positioning and Indoor Navigation (IPIN) Competition. The 2016 IPIN competition considered three different scenario dimensions, with a variety of use cases: (1) pedestrian versus robotic navigation, (2) smartphones versus custom hardware usage and (3) real-time positioning versus off-line post-processing. A total of four competition tracks were evaluated under the same EvAAL benchmark framework in order to validate its potential to become a standard for evaluating indoor localization solutions. The experience gained during the competition and feedback from track organizers and competitors showed that the EvAAL framework is flexible enough to successfully fit the very different tracks and appears adequate to compare indoor positioning systems. Full article
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493 KiB  
Article
On Efficient Deployment of Wireless Sensors for Coverage and Connectivity in Constrained 3D Space
by Chase Q. Wu and Li Wang
Sensors 2017, 17(10), 2304; https://doi.org/10.3390/s17102304 - 10 Oct 2017
Cited by 13 | Viewed by 4480
Abstract
Sensor networks have been used in a rapidly increasing number of applications in many fields. This work generalizes a sensor deployment problem to place a minimum set of wireless sensors at candidate locations in constrained 3D space to k-cover a given set [...] Read more.
Sensor networks have been used in a rapidly increasing number of applications in many fields. This work generalizes a sensor deployment problem to place a minimum set of wireless sensors at candidate locations in constrained 3D space to k-cover a given set of target objects. By exhausting the combinations of discreteness/continuousness constraints on either sensor locations or target objects, we formulate four classes of sensor deployment problems in 3D space: deploy sensors at Discrete/Continuous Locations (D/CL) to cover Discrete/Continuous Targets (D/CT). We begin with the design of an approximate algorithm for DLDT and then reduce DLCT, CLDT, and CLCT to DLDT by discretizing continuous sensor locations or target objects into a set of divisions without sacrificing sensing precision. Furthermore, we consider a connected version of each problem where the deployed sensors must form a connected network, and design an approximation algorithm to minimize the number of deployed sensors with connectivity guarantee. For performance comparison, we design and implement an optimal solution and a genetic algorithm (GA)-based approach. Extensive simulation results show that the proposed deployment algorithms consistently outperform the GA-based heuristic and achieve a close-to-optimal performance in small-scale problem instances and a significantly superior overall performance than the theoretical upper bound. Full article
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4441 KiB  
Article
Pose Estimation of a Mobile Robot Based on Fusion of IMU Data and Vision Data Using an Extended Kalman Filter
by Mary B. Alatise and Gerhard P. Hancke
Sensors 2017, 17(10), 2164; https://doi.org/10.3390/s17102164 - 21 Sep 2017
Cited by 166 | Viewed by 20849
Abstract
Using a single sensor to determine the pose estimation of a device cannot give accurate results. This paper presents a fusion of an inertial sensor of six degrees of freedom (6-DoF) which comprises the 3-axis of an accelerometer and the 3-axis of a [...] Read more.
Using a single sensor to determine the pose estimation of a device cannot give accurate results. This paper presents a fusion of an inertial sensor of six degrees of freedom (6-DoF) which comprises the 3-axis of an accelerometer and the 3-axis of a gyroscope, and a vision to determine a low-cost and accurate position for an autonomous mobile robot. For vision, a monocular vision-based object detection algorithm speeded-up robust feature (SURF) and random sample consensus (RANSAC) algorithms were integrated and used to recognize a sample object in several images taken. As against the conventional method that depend on point-tracking, RANSAC uses an iterative method to estimate the parameters of a mathematical model from a set of captured data which contains outliers. With SURF and RANSAC, improved accuracy is certain; this is because of their ability to find interest points (features) under different viewing conditions using a Hessain matrix. This approach is proposed because of its simple implementation, low cost, and improved accuracy. With an extended Kalman filter (EKF), data from inertial sensors and a camera were fused to estimate the position and orientation of the mobile robot. All these sensors were mounted on the mobile robot to obtain an accurate localization. An indoor experiment was carried out to validate and evaluate the performance. Experimental results show that the proposed method is fast in computation, reliable and robust, and can be considered for practical applications. The performance of the experiments was verified by the ground truth data and root mean square errors (RMSEs). Full article
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4325 KiB  
Article
A Novel Energy-Efficient Approach for Human Activity Recognition
by Lingxiang Zheng, Dihong Wu, Xiaoyang Ruan, Shaolin Weng, Ao Peng, Biyu Tang, Hai Lu, Haibin Shi and Huiru Zheng
Sensors 2017, 17(9), 2064; https://doi.org/10.3390/s17092064 - 8 Sep 2017
Cited by 34 | Viewed by 5696
Abstract
In this paper, we propose a novel energy-efficient approach for mobile activity recognition system (ARS) to detect human activities. The proposed energy-efficient ARS, using low sampling rates, can achieve high recognition accuracy and low energy consumption. A novel classifier that integrates hierarchical support [...] Read more.
In this paper, we propose a novel energy-efficient approach for mobile activity recognition system (ARS) to detect human activities. The proposed energy-efficient ARS, using low sampling rates, can achieve high recognition accuracy and low energy consumption. A novel classifier that integrates hierarchical support vector machine and context-based classification (HSVMCC) is presented to achieve a high accuracy of activity recognition when the sampling rate is less than the activity frequency, i.e., the Nyquist sampling theorem is not satisfied. We tested the proposed energy-efficient approach with the data collected from 20 volunteers (14 males and six females) and the average recognition accuracy of around 96.0% was achieved. Results show that using a low sampling rate of 1Hz can save 17.3% and 59.6% of energy compared with the sampling rates of 5 Hz and 50 Hz. The proposed low sampling rate approach can greatly reduce the power consumption while maintaining high activity recognition accuracy. The composition of power consumption in online ARS is also investigated in this paper. Full article
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2237 KiB  
Article
Landmark-Based Homing Navigation Using Omnidirectional Depth Information
by Changmin Lee, Seung-Eun Yu and DaeEun Kim
Sensors 2017, 17(8), 1928; https://doi.org/10.3390/s17081928 - 22 Aug 2017
Cited by 17 | Viewed by 6097
Abstract
A number of landmark-based navigation algorithms have been studied using feature extraction over the visual information. In this paper, we apply the distance information of the surrounding environment in a landmark navigation model. We mount a depth sensor on a mobile robot, in [...] Read more.
A number of landmark-based navigation algorithms have been studied using feature extraction over the visual information. In this paper, we apply the distance information of the surrounding environment in a landmark navigation model. We mount a depth sensor on a mobile robot, in order to obtain omnidirectional distance information. The surrounding environment is represented as a circular form of landmark vectors, which forms a snapshot. The depth snapshots at the current position and the target position are compared to determine the homing direction, inspired by the snapshot model. Here, we suggest a holistic view of panoramic depth information for homing navigation where each sample point is taken as a landmark. The results are shown in a vector map of homing vectors. The performance of the suggested method is evaluated based on the angular errors and the homing success rate. Omnidirectional depth information about the surrounding environment can be a promising source of landmark homing navigation. We demonstrate the results that a holistic approach with omnidirectional depth information shows effective homing navigation. Full article
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3252 KiB  
Article
Performance Analysis of ToA-Based Positioning Algorithms for Static and Dynamic Targets with Low Ranging Measurements
by André G. Ferreira, Duarte Fernandes, André P. Catarino and João L. Monteiro
Sensors 2017, 17(8), 1915; https://doi.org/10.3390/s17081915 - 19 Aug 2017
Cited by 46 | Viewed by 6301
Abstract
Indoor Positioning Systems (IPSs) for emergency responders is a challenging field attracting researchers worldwide. When compared with traditional indoor positioning solutions, the IPSs for emergency responders stand out as they have to operate in harsh and unstructured environments. From the various technologies available [...] Read more.
Indoor Positioning Systems (IPSs) for emergency responders is a challenging field attracting researchers worldwide. When compared with traditional indoor positioning solutions, the IPSs for emergency responders stand out as they have to operate in harsh and unstructured environments. From the various technologies available for the localization process, ultra-wide band (UWB) is a promising technology for such systems due to its robust signaling in harsh environments, through-wall propagation and high-resolution ranging. However, during emergency responders’ missions, the availability of UWB signals is generally low (the nodes have to be deployed as the emergency responders enter a building) and can be affected by the non-line-of-sight (NLOS) conditions. In this paper, the performance of four typical distance-based positioning algorithms (Analytical, Least Squares, Taylor Series, and Extended Kalman Filter methods) with only three ranging measurements is assessed based on a COTS UWB transceiver. These algorithms are compared based on accuracy, precision and root mean square error (RMSE). The algorithms were evaluated under two environments with different propagation conditions (an atrium and a lab), for static and mobile devices, and under the human body’s influence. A NLOS identification and error mitigation algorithm was also used to improve the ranging measurements. The results show that the Extended Kalman Filter outperforms the other algorithms in almost every scenario, but it is affected by the low measurement rate of the UWB system. Full article
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4755 KiB  
Article
Hitchhiking Robots: A Collaborative Approach for Efficient Multi-Robot Navigation in Indoor Environments
by Abhijeet Ravankar, Ankit A. Ravankar, Yukinori Kobayashi and Takanori Emaru
Sensors 2017, 17(8), 1878; https://doi.org/10.3390/s17081878 - 15 Aug 2017
Cited by 23 | Viewed by 6578
Abstract
Hitchhiking is a means of transportation gained by asking other people for a (free) ride. We developed a multi-robot system which is the first of its kind to incorporate hitchhiking in robotics, and discuss its advantages. Our method allows the hitchhiker robot to [...] Read more.
Hitchhiking is a means of transportation gained by asking other people for a (free) ride. We developed a multi-robot system which is the first of its kind to incorporate hitchhiking in robotics, and discuss its advantages. Our method allows the hitchhiker robot to skip redundant computations in navigation like path planning, localization, obstacle avoidance, and map update by completely relying on the driver robot. This allows the hitchhiker robot, which performs only visual servoing, to save computation while navigating on the common path with the driver robot. The driver robot, in the proposed system performs all the heavy computations in navigation and updates the hitchhiker about the current localized positions and new obstacle positions in the map. The proposed system is robust to recover from `driver-lost’ scenario which occurs due to visual servoing failure. We demonstrate robot hitchhiking in real environments considering factors like service-time and task priority with different start and goal configurations of the driver and hitchhiker robots. We also discuss the admissible characteristics of the hitchhiker, when hitchhiking should be allowed and when not, through experimental results. Full article
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4222 KiB  
Article
Stairs and Doors Recognition as Natural Landmarks Based on Clouds of 3D Edge-Points from RGB-D Sensors for Mobile Robot Localization
by Leonardo A. V. Souto, André Castro, Luiz Marcos Garcia Gonçalves and Tiago P. Nascimento
Sensors 2017, 17(8), 1824; https://doi.org/10.3390/s17081824 - 8 Aug 2017
Cited by 24 | Viewed by 11076
Abstract
Natural landmarks are the main features in the next step of the research in localization of mobile robot platforms. The identification and recognition of these landmarks are crucial to better localize a robot. To help solving this problem, this work proposes an approach [...] Read more.
Natural landmarks are the main features in the next step of the research in localization of mobile robot platforms. The identification and recognition of these landmarks are crucial to better localize a robot. To help solving this problem, this work proposes an approach for the identification and recognition of natural marks included in the environment using images from RGB-D (Red, Green, Blue, Depth) sensors. In the identification step, a structural analysis of the natural landmarks that are present in the environment is performed. The extraction of edge points of these landmarks is done using the 3D point cloud obtained from the RGB-D sensor. These edge points are smoothed through the S l 0 algorithm, which minimizes the standard deviation of the normals at each point. Then, the second step of the proposed algorithm begins, which is the proper recognition of the natural landmarks. This recognition step is done as a real-time algorithm that extracts the points referring to the filtered edges and determines to which structure they belong to in the current scenario: stairs or doors. Finally, the geometrical characteristics that are intrinsic to the doors and stairs are identified. The approach proposed here has been validated with real robot experiments. The performed tests verify the efficacy of our proposed approach. Full article
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