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I started doing some thinking about creating an Android application that can be used within a corporate building to determine what room you are in. Obviously I'm thinking GPS and network locations wouldn't be accurate enough to accomplish this. (Not to mention the instability of GPS signal inside) I looked briefly into calculating distance via the accelerometer, but it is apparently highly volatile and leaves a large margin for error. I've also considered some sort of triangulation from routers, but you run into issues with walls/microwaves and various other things that could upset the signal strength. Does anyone have any possible ideas or directions to try?

honeal
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  • Off the top of my head I can't think of any existing technology that can accomplish this. Even figuring out what floor of the building you are on would be difficult... – Anthony Sep 09 '11 at 03:29

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How about bluetooth tags that emit a room id. You could make money merchandising the emitters on a facility size basis and they could provide additional functionality such as:
(1) forming a pico net that ultimately updates the an onsite server with locations of everyone using the app, or
(2) tracking key equipment with a similar bluetooth tag, etc.
You could get something similar to the link below in qty from China, I'm sure:
http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/26/nio-bluetooth-security-tag-keeps-tabs-on-your-belongings/

Stephen
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  • Very interesting concept. A bluetooth PAN would be quite feasible. I'm curious what kind of damage it would do to a phone's battery throughout the course of a day. I will certainly be looking into this idea a bit more. – honeal Sep 13 '11 at 03:26
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Perhaps it is not too much help but the papers I have found on this subject are these:

RSSI-Based Indoor Localization and Tracking Using Sigma-Point Kalman Smoothers

Pedestrian Tracking with Shoe-Mounted Inertial Sensors

Enhancing the Performance of Pedometers Using a Single Accelerometer

I have no idea how these methods would perform in real-life applications or how to turn them into a nice Android app.

I am curious what other answers you will get.

Ali
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  • Interesting reads. The RSSI article sounds promising, but due to this being purely experimental it would difficult to pull off at this time. Thank you for the comments! I would upvote if I had the required level. – honeal Sep 13 '11 at 03:35