iLOC - building indoor navigation services using Linked Data

Currently, there are hardly any indoor navigation services utilizing Linked Data, and there is also a lack of available vocabularies or ontologies for the description of building plans. This paper presents the iLOC ontology as a generic approach for in-house wayfinding and location description. The suggested Linked Data model enables the integration of various datasets related to buildings and can be used in museums, shopping malls, hospitals, campuses, stadiums, airports, etc. Possible use cases include the description of nearby places, planning routes or finding places with given features, even in emergency situations. iLOC supports three levels of details for a building plan, with increasing complexity and capabilities. Furthermore, routes can be calculated with flexible constraints for users' goals and abilities. The ontology is demonstrated with a smartphone application helping university students to find their lectures.