An iBeacon Assisted Indoor Localization and Tracking System

Modern smartphones are equipped with a number of embedded sensors, such as accelerometer, magnetometer, gyroscope, barometer, etc., and these sensors are increasingly being used in smartphone based localization. The most widely used smartphone based localization technique is Pedestrian Dead Reckoning (PDR) which leverages on the previous position, walking length and walking direction to determine the current position. The PDR approach can provide a high localization accuracy in a short range, but it will drift with walking distance. We intend to apply the iBeacon which is a new technology released by Apple Inc. to correct this drift. The iBeacon technique is established upon Bluetooth Low Power (BLE), therefore, it is very power efficient and can achieve localization based on Received Signal Strength (RSS). A particle filter is formulated for the combination of the PDR approach and iBeacon for real-time indoor localization and tracking [1].