Infrastructure Free Indoor Location Positioning Technologies

Infrastructure-free indoor location positioning technologies offer short term evolution and long term revolution. The short term evolution is the ability to deploy indoor localization in a site without having to install, configure and maintain the infrastructure of beacons or locator devices. The longer-term revolution is the ability for mass-market applications and devices to position themselves universally, in any site worldwide, without any deliberate configuration for each site.

Infrastructure-free localization work generally using a combination of a few techniques. First, dead reckoning (motion sensing) enables a device to track its location given an initial position based on GPS outdoors. Second, geomagnetic field readings give the ability to match previous readings to estimate location. Third, radio signals of opportunity, usually either cellular or Wi-Fi, give additional sources of information. Fourth, map constraints eliminate ranges of error. Finally, visual data from device cameras give data on the surroundings similar to that which people use. Each of these approaches and more can be implemented and combined in many ways.

This report profiles technologies from eleven companies with infrastructure-free indoor location solutions on the market. We also profile related R&D from Apple, Google, Facebook and others that are not on the market as solutions but may bring universal positioning to mass-market reality.

Indoor location positioning being infrastructure-free does bring trade-offs. In most cases, infrastructure-free positioning will be less accurate than infrastructure-based positioning, since the infrastructure gives significant additional data that makes the position estimates more accurate. But these trade-offs are worth it for sites that do not want to deploy infrastructure. Even beyond the installation of infrastructure, the maintenance effort and cost is often considerable. These trade-offs are even more worthwhile in the longer-term vision of mass-market localization in all locations.

For those interested in higher accuracy or other indoor location segments, other reports will give the details you need. For those who want indoor location positioning that will work in their site without requiring infrastructure, or which can work universally, the technologies and solutions in this report are how to achieve it.