2016 International Conference on Internet of Things and Applications (IOTA)

Maharashtra Institute of Technology, Pune, India 22 Jan - 24 Jan, 2016

Indoor Positioning System Using Euclidean

Distance Correction Algorithm with Bluetooth Low
Energy Beacon

Yankai Wang1, Qingyu Yang2, Guangrui Zhang3, Peng Zhang4

International school
Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications
Beijing, China
1
) wyk1029@126.com, 2) 2809787538@qq.com, 3) yqy9449@126.com, 4) ericbjsdfz@hotmail.com

Abstract— Recently, indoor Location Based Service(LBS) has

been a hot business model but "the last mile" problem is a II. SYSTEM COMPONENT6
critical issue when deploying this service, while Bluetooth Low The whole system consists of three components: cloud
Energy (BLE) technology is a solution. In this paper we propose a server, smart phone APP and Bluetooth beacons.
Euclidean distance correction algorithm improved from k-
Nearest Neighbor algorithm and position calculation method, A. Cloud Server
then use it in Bluetooth positioning. We also give the positioning
procedure and the system construction in detail, including
The cloud server records data and calculates the position
deploying massive Bluetooth beacons in vast indoor area, using using an algorithm which will be introduced later.
smart phone and cloud server to collect and calculate Bluetooth B. Smart Phone APP
data respectively, and presenting results on a smart phone. We
have tested it in two scenes using several methods, and field test Smart phone collects Received Signal Strength (RSS) data
results show that we have got a relatively accurate result (1.58 for the system, and then uploads it to cloud server to do
meters), which indicates a practical solution to “the last mile” positioning and navigation. To be compatible with BLE
problem. And such solution can be used in the real situation, with protocol, the smart phone must be equipped with Bluetooth 4.0
the advantages of low cost and high durability. adaptor. For Android phones, the API level should be no lower
than 18, which means the operation system (OS) version has to
Keywords— Indoor positioning, Bluetooth Low Energy, be no lower than Android 4.3. For iPhones, the hardware
Received signal strength
version should be no lower than iPhone 4s, and OS version
I. INTRODUCTION should be no lower than iOS 7.
Study on indoor positioning has been popular since the last C. Bluetooth Beacon
decades and people have developed various methods in In our system we use nodes manufactured by April Brother
positioning such as Wi-Fi [1-2], RFID [3-4], and so on. But [5], which use Texas Instruments cc2540 chip solution. It
two methods have unavoidable disadvantages. Wi-Fi is presents that the RSS fade dramatically while distance
restricted by the environment and power supply, while RFID is increases from 1 to 5 m. Due to our experiment, the decrement
restricted for the user may need special equipment to realize of RSS turns slow after the distance is longer than 10 m, at the
positioning. Bluetooth low energy (BLE) is a high potential distance of 25 m, the signal will stay around -99 dBm. BLE
new technology with low energy consumption and low cost. uses 3 channels, each bandwidth is 2MHz [6]. The composition
Using a button battery, a Bluetooth beacon can stay active from of BLE beacon is shown below, the green one is circuit board,
six months up to two years depending on the frequency and its
own power usage. What’s more, it can keep the signal power in
a relatively stable level which is important for indoor
positioning. The cost of Bluetooth beacon with one button
battery is less than ten dollars. With such reasonable cost, it
could cover from 25 square meters to 100 square meters, which
also depends on its signal power. The signal power can be
flexibly chosen from -23dBm to 4dBm [5]. Bluetooth beacons
help people to easily set up a network which suits for indoor
positioning. A new method for indoor positioning is proposed
in our paper, which can be applied in real environment.
Fig. 1.Composition of Bluetooth beacon.
The authors would like to acknowledge the technical and financial
support of the project sponsors, Beijing University of Posts and
Telecommunications, innovation committee.

978-1-5090-0044-9/16/$31.00 ©2016 IEEE 243

the sliver one is battery and the black things are the shield of
the Bluetooth beacon.
III. SITE LAYOUT AND POSITIONING PROCEDURE
The BLE beacons are uniformly placed so that users can
receive good quality signal at most places. The testing area is
divided into small blocks by horizontal and vertical lines. And
each line is X (depending on the needs) meters away from the
next.
Firstly, at each cross point, signal strength is scanned Z
times to offset the noise caused by the signal fluctuation of
Bluetooth beacons, moving obstacles and irrelevant
electromagnetic waves spanning around 2.4 GHz. Then, we
select N (depending on need and environment) Bluetooth
beacons, which have stronger average signal strength than
others. And their average signal strength and mac address will
be saved into one row in form of N attributes.
During positioning, user scans the signal M times
(depending on the needs), which is also used to offset noise.
The smart phone will upload raw data to sever. Sever will
handle the data, and then compare it with the signal data stored
in database row by row. After the comparison, server will
choose three rows that are most likely to smart phone uploaded
data. Calculated position from these rows will be the smart
phone’s position.
Finally, the phone will get the position information and
present it on the screen. During the procedure, smart phone,
database and server cooperate cohesively.
IV. ALGORITHM LOGIC
A Euclidean distance correction (ECKP) algorithm
developed from KNN (K-Nearest Nodes) algorithm and
Position calculation method is used in this system in order to
fit the real situation. This is mainly due to the fact that though
the average signal strength is relatively stable in a long term,
its signal strength is unstable in short term which fluctuates
from -1dBm to -10dBm during sampling interval. This could
be seen in Fig.4 as we have collected a beacons RSS for 50
seconds. To address this problem, the smart phone will collect
data in a long term during offline data sampling and
positioning, then the server will calculate the average of RSS
data under each MAC address.
We once considered using trilateration algorithm, which is
an approach for tracking mobile objects [7-8]. However, with
too many obstacles in the environment, trilateration algorithm
is not as accurate as fingerprint. So we finally choose
fingerprint algorithm and improve it [9-11].
The server calculates the Euclidean distance of the RSS
data uploaded by smart phone and data stored in the database,
which is used to store signal strength information. A row of
data in the database consists of N groups of mac address of
Bluetooth beacons and its related RSS data. And there are
many rows of data in the database. When RSS data is
uploaded from smart phone, the server compares it with first
row in the database, and matches the attributes that have the
same mac address, then analyzes the similarity of these two
rows of data. In the end all rows in the database will be
compared with the uploaded data. The position information of
the three rows that has the smallest Euclidean distance will be
calculated and its position will be user’s current position. The
formula is as following:

³ 
N 2
M i  mi 
d M ,m, N 
i 1
(1)
N
M and m represents the signal strength stored in the
database and uploaded by the smart phone respectively. i
represents the sequence number of matching groups.
Fig. 2. system structure We also face two significant problems when we implement
algorithm above during the test. First, we place Bluetooth
beacons every 5 meters in large area. The testing shows that
smart phone can receive signals from Bluetooth beacon for 25
meters at most, but most Bluetooth beacons’ signal strength

Fig. 3. The diagrammatic sketch of the whole procedure

Fig. 4. signal strength fluctuation with time

244
received by smart phone fluctuates slightly between -99dBm to
-101dBm if they are over 10 meters away from the smart
phone. For it doesn’t fluctuate much, it would be valueless to
store it in database. Aiming at this problem, we stipulate that
the database can save up to ten groups of attributes and the
smart phone is also only allowed to upload ten groups.
However, this leads to the second problem. If the data uploaded
by smart phone at the position A matches a row of data with
few attributes, and the signal strength from both sides of those
matched attributes are between -99dBm and -101dBm, then the
average Euclidean distance will be lowered dramatically, the
server will take the position information stored in this row for
smart phone’s current position, resulting in that the smart
phone’s actual position deviates far from the calculated one.
To solve this problem, when server calculates Euclidean
distance of a row of data in database with smart phone’s
uploaded data, we add an extra parameter of 1024 to Euclidean
distance when every time the MAC address of a beacon
uploaded by smart phone can’t match this row, meaning that
the Bluetooth beacon can’t be matched is very far from smart
phone’s actual position. So the ECKP algorithm is as
following:
deploying 9 beacons, which is illustrated in the Fig.4. The
scene B is an indoor room that is 44 meters long and 22 meters
wide, which is illustrated in the Fig.5. Considering the
performance of Bluetooth beacon and the need of accuracy, 34
Bluetooth beacons is a must. Adding more beacons makes no
obvious difference. In both scenes each Bluetooth beacon is 5
meters away from the neighboring one. In some areas of scene
B, the distance is a little bit longer or shorter due to the
environment limitation. In both scenes the power of Bluetooth
beacon is adjusted to 4dBm, and refreshing rate is 10/3 Hz. In
Fig.4 and Fig.5, the green rectangle represents Bluetooth
beacon.
B. Offline Data Collection
During the test, we find that for same smart phones, when
they start scanning, some beacons may not be scanned at the
beginning, only after scanning several times hidden Bluetooth
beacons will appear, faster refreshing rate will take it longer
time to show all the available beacons. Under same refreshing
rate, due to different types of Bluetooth adaptors, some phones
may scan five to six times to find all of them. Taking both
accuracy and efficiency into consideration, phone used in this
test scans 15 seconds with 2 Hz refreshing rate.

³  In scene A, each sampling position in 2 meters away from

N
d M ,m, N  M i  m i    1 0  N  u 1 0 2 4 ()
i 1 each other, we collect RSS data 30 times at every sampling
position twice during an interval of 8 hours, and save the RSS
After testing, we find that 1024 is the number suitable for -
this situation. It is 1024 because the valuable RSS mostly range
from -60dBm to -70dBm, RSS above -90dBm would be
considered valueless, for it’s insensitive to the distance change.
We select a typical difference between the valuable and
valueless RSS, which is 32, the square of it is 1024. With
smaller parameter, the system may choose a row of record that
is far from the phone as the correction parameter’s wright is too
small, with larger parameter, the system will be inclined to
select a row that matches the most attributes regardless of the
RSS difference between records and the data smart phone
collects.
When we get d(M,m,N), we will choose three positions that
have the smallest d(M,m,N), and returned position will be:

3a x  2bx  c
x (3)
6 Fig. 5. Scene A

3a y  2by  c y
y (4)
6

Where a is the row that has the smallest d(M,m,N), b is the

second lowest, c is the third. In this way we could minimize
the positioning error, and calculate a position that is nearer to
the smart phone.
V. FIELD TEST PROCEDURE AND RESULTS
A. System Deployment
We choose two scenes to verify ECKP algorithm. The
scene A is an outdoor place that is 10 x 10 meters square

Fig. 6. Scene B

245
data into database A and B respectively. In scene B, as shown
in Fig.5, is divided into small square blocks with 1 square
meter area, and we merge four blocks into one. The RSS data is
collected in the center of each block using method used in
scene A, and RSS data will be saved into database C and D
respectively.
C. Positioning Data Collection
8 hours after the last offline data sampling, we walk
randomly to position one hundred times in the scene A and B
respectively. After positioning, all the raw data will be
uploaded to the server and saved.
D. Data Processing
After saving the testing data into server, we test
positioning performance in several ways. firstly we use the
testing data in scene A, offline RSS data from both databases
A and B only with original algorithm, then record the result in
the name of series 1 and the result is shown in the TABLE ĉ.
Then we use testing data in scene B, offline data in database C
to test positioning performance with original and ECKP
algorithm, after that we use testing data in scene B, RSS data -
in database C and D only with ECKP algorithm. Those results
are shown in TABLE Ċ, in order of series 2, 3 and 4.
position, using duplicated data is likely to choose two rows
that are sampled at the same sampling position and is the
nearest to smart phone.
VI. CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE WORK
Depending on researches we have done, we can get
conclusions as follows:
1. The original algorithm works well in small area for
there are only several beacons and they can all be
scanned and stored in database, while in wide area,
when not all the beacons can be stored in database and
received by smart phone, original algorithm does not
work well.
2. ECKP algorithm does have a better performance in
wide area with a large amount of Bluetooth beacons
comparing to the normal algorithm.
3. When using two databases, the positioning
performance improves comparing to using one.
4. This system could be used in several scenes that
require relatively high accuracy. In the future, with the
development of deploying methods, the cost of
deploying system will be lower.

E. Results Analysis After testing, we find that valuable and valueless Bluetooth
beacons also varied in several degrees, fixed parameter may
From the results above, we can see that in the scene A,
not be as useful as a dynamic one. Developing an algorithm in
there are only 9 Bluetooth beacons available, we don’t need to
the future using dynamic parameter may perform better. Also,
consider the two problems mentioned above, for rows in the
in this test we use the average to deal with the white noise
database can save all the Bluetooth beacons’ information, the
when collecting offline RSS data and positioning, but use
average error is 0.64 m, reaching our expectation comparing
Kalman filter method will help improve the accuracy, we have
with these two [10-11], this reveals that testing system works
done the test but not in a systematical way, so the result is not
well, so the testing result in scene B should also be reliable.
shown in this paper.
While in scene B, when using original algorithm, since its
deviation is above 10 meters, ECKP algorithm has a REFERENCES
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