Towards a generic platform for indoor positioning using existing infrastructure and symbolic maps

One of the important challenges for personalised, context-aware information delivery within buildings is to be able to show the user a map with their own location as well as the locations of points of interest for them. One very desirable property of a personalised, context-aware mobile application is that it can operate at the same time as preserving the user's privacy. To achieve this, we need to do on-device positioning and personalisation. This paper presents the design of a platform, and its implementation for the retrieval of publicly available building data (symbolic maps and associated radio-frequency infrastructure point locations) for the purpose of coarse-grained indoor positioning on mobile devices. In comparison to other indoor positioning systems, this work focuses on the mechanism through which building data is made available to mobile devices, as too the motivation in providing generic coarse-grained indoor positioning based on the use of existing infrastructure and building data.