IPSCL: An accurate indoor positioning algorithm using sensors and crowdsourced landmarks

Indoor positioning technology has attracted the attention of researchers due to the increasing pervasiveness of smartphones and the development of sensor technology, along with the increase of indoor time. Sensor technology, which is one of the most commonly used data sources for indoor positioning, has the advantage that sensors can receive data from a smartphone without installing any additional device. However, the readings of built-in sensors are easily affected by the surrounding environment and are even occasionally different from each other which adversely influence the accuracy of indoor positioning. Moreover, once an error occurs, it can accumulate because there is not any reference point in the sensor, only in indoor positioning. In this paper, we present an accurate indoor positioning technology, which uses smartphone built-in sensors and Bluetooth beacon-based landmarks. Our proposed algorithm chooses proper one between values of sensors alternately based on their characteristics. It exploits landmarks as the reference points of indoor positioning. It also allows individuals to add the location where they repeatedly detect the same and special beacon received signal strength indicator values as a crowdsourced landmark. Extensive experimental results show that our proposed algorithm facilitates the acquisition of accurate heading direction and coordinates of the user.