Radio Beacons in Indoor Navigation

Abstract

Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons are a relatively new technology in the area of indoor navigation. They represent a cheap alternative to other localisation methods with the potential of a high precision. However, BLE beacons have also their drawbacks. One of them is that their signals are often strongly noised. This paper deals with the possibility to use BLE beacons in the indoor navigation together with a modified version of Kalman filter as an efficient means for noise elimination. The localisation is based on measuring the so-called received signal strength and subsequent trilateration, which results in the position calculation of a BLE signal receiver. The proposed navigation system is finalised by creating a navigation map using BLE beacons and a depth sensor and. In this paper, it was used for navigation of a mobile robot. A series of experiments was done and the most significant results are described and summarized.