Indoor positioning is just like a GPS, but for the indoors. Just as the GPS leverages in the signals of a group of satellites orbiting around the Earth, Situm indoor positioning or RTLS (Real Time Location System) uses the signals present in today’s buildings, such as magnetic fields, Bluetooth from BLE beacons and WiFi from Access Points, to be able to pinpoint the user location with the maximum accuracy. But, contrary to the GPS, Situm does not need to know where the BLE beacons or WiFi APs are: we just need to know their signal maps across the environment.
In order to configure Situm in a building, an operator will have to:
- Upload the building floorplans to Situm Dashboard.
- Perform the calibration process with our app Situm Mapping Tool, which involves gathering the BLE and WiFi signals all across the environment to build their signal maps.
- Situm will only work in areas that have been calibrated.
- Anybody can download this Android application and, just by walking around the building and pinpointing where they are every few meters in the app screen, gather all the WiFi & BLE signals to build the signal maps.
- From these calibrations, our AI algorithms create the signal maps that will be used to provide indoor & outdoor geolocation.
Once the signal maps are available, Situm’s algorithm will compare the signals received with those expected from the signal maps, and fuse this information with the user movement as estimated by the smartphone’s inertial sensors (compass, gyroscope and accelerometer) to provide a high accuracy without the need of additional hardware.
Based on this accurate geolocation, you will be able to locate your users, guide them, show them geolocated promotions, monitor their movement and gather insights within your buildings. And of course, when the user is outdoors, the GPS information is also available. Situm fuses this sensor as well, providing a seamless indoor & outdoor transition and allowing you to build indoor & outdoor geolocation apps with the same platform.
Situm RTLS main features are:
- Provides an indoor location accuracy of 1-3 meters in average.
- Works both indoors and outdoors, with a smooth transition in-between.
- Detects automatically the venue where the user is.
- Detects automatically the floor where the user is.
- Provides the 3D orientation of the smartphone (bearing, pitch, roll) and it’s also very robust against electromagnetic interferences (typical of indoor environments).
- This is very useful to build Augmented Reality applications.
