Smart Space

An Indoor Positioning Framework

S TEPHAN L INZNER∗ DANIEL K ERSTING C HRISTIAN H OENE
University of Tuebingen -WSI
Interactive Communication Systems (ICS)
Germany

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August 31, 2009

Abstract
With the rise of the web of things and augmented reality applications the need for context awareness increases.
In particular user location is an important information in context aware computing. Today, the location for outdoor
enviroments is provided by the Global Positioning System (GPS). However there is no appropriate solution for in-
door enviroments yet. In the past numerous approaches on how to accomplish indoor localization have been made,
but most of them are using customized hardware. Now, a new generation of smart mobile devices equipped with nu-
merous sensors and technologies, supplemented by omnipresent enviromental radio frequency (RF) infrastructure,
allows fine-grained sensor profiling (Location Fingerprinting) of any environment. The Smart Space Framework
(SSF), extends the android platform by indoor positioning (IP) capabilities and provides developers with IP data.
SSF makes ”passive” use of existing WLAN, Bluetooth and GSM infrastructure and is supported by an inertial
navigation component, which uses gyroscope, accelerometer and electric compass, to transcribe user location. SSF
is easy to use, learns continuously about changes in the enviroment and seamlessly integrates into the Location
Provider concept of the android platform. Thus it enables developers to build Location aware applications for
indoor environments.

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