Future Technologies

Indoor positioning coming to life?

By the Team on 23 September 2008

ESPOO, Finland – People spend most of their time indoors (up to 90 per cent, according to research). GPS only works outside. Indoor positioning then could prove to be one of those killer apps that could change the way we interact with the world. Kimmo Kalliola, research leader for Wireless Systems and Services, gave us an update on Indoor Positioning, which was first shown off last year.

It could be said that indoor navigation is more important than outdoor
navigation. No, not finding your way around the house in the dark, but
getting to your seat at a football stadium, or to that store you want
to visit in a shopping centre or, and this is a crazy one, finding a
product in a supermarket. That would be nuts. Even better and a real
problem solver, is finding the location of your car in a car park.
Imagine being able to take a picture of your car and then being able to
navigate your way back to it (actually – I’m going to do that next time
I leave my car in an airport car park!)

At work there are plenty of examples too. Finding a printer, or an
empty meeting room are regular workplace issues. Potentially, solved.

Wireless networks could be the key to finding your way around inside
but it’s only part of the answer. Making a solution that’s scalable and
can be easily rolled out is a much bigger challenge. How to map the
buildings, for example, is quite a challenge. Part of the answer could
come from the user community though, and in fact could become essential
to making this a success.

In fact, Nokia is already trialling indoor positioning in over 40 Nokia
buildings worldwide. And the first public buildings have already been
mapped, including some malls, airports and universities. Later this
year there’ll be a commercial trial with a shopping mall in Helsinki,
to explore how revenue could be generated by this service.

The best news though? This app is being considered for Beta Labs. Brilliant!

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AdamF Says:
September 23rd, 2008 at 4:02 pm

I like this idea very much, and as you say, if we spend 90% indoors, then something like this would be huge to improve every day lives.

As far as getting things done quicker in a work environment, this would save getting lost or wasting time looking for something.

It does have security implications though.

You might want people to find your retail outlet inside a mall, but now know the exact layout of the shop and its storage locations.
So this would have to be carefully thought out to prevent those snooping eyes.

Atanas Boev Says:
September 23rd, 2008 at 5:07 pm

Which shopping mall?

meneame.net Says:
September 25th, 2008 at 11:50 am

Nokia investiga una nueva tecnología de posicionamiento indoor [ENG]

En Nokia están probando un nuevo sistema de navegación mediante redes inalámbricas que mapean espacios cerrados y que, de ser efectivo, podría utilizarse como gps indoor.

Lee Wright Says:
September 26th, 2008 at 6:44 pm

“It could be said that indoor navigation is more important than outdoor navigation.”

Perhaps, but it wouldn’t be said by a serious person.

This is interesting and useful, and of course, inevitable, but more important overall? No, and we know that objectively. One recent measure: The size (cost) of Nokia’s acquisition of Navteq dwarf’s Nokia’s investment in indoor solutions.

Afshin Says:
May 22nd, 2009 at 3:04 pm

Hi,

Are you a team player working on this indoor navigation system? I’m working on similar system and I was going to get updated on the recent status of this system and also have some suggestions to extend it. Please contact me or pass my contact information to somebody who is in charge and I can talk to him/her.

Thanks, Afshin

Paul Says:
August 17th, 2009 at 7:18 am

Hi Afshin

If you are still there. I too am working on an indoor navigation system to run on mobile. Wouldnt mind discussing with you to see if we have similar challenges. I am currently experimenting with adding a routefinding code to my app. I hope to get it to give written instructions on how to get from “A” to “B”.

In fact if anyone else whats to discuss same please let me know of your interest and we can see if we can hook up on e-mail.

Regards

Paul