An Inquiry-based Bluetooth indoor positioning approach for the Finnish pavilion at Shanghai World Expo 2010

This paper presents a Bluetooth indoor positioning approach, an inquiry-based solution, that uses Bluetooth access points to inquire the Bluetooth-enabled devices in range via RSSI probability distributions. A practical system architecture is designed after the Bluetooth protocol and profiles are studied. A Weibull function is applied for approximating the Bluetooth signal strength distribution in the data training phase. The Histogram Maximum Likelihood position estimation based on Bayesian theory is utilized in the location determination phase. To verify that the approach will work in the Finnish pavilion at Shanghai World Expo 2010, the proposed solution is merged into a 3D navigation application and tested in the Finnish Geodetic Institute. The results show the feasibility of indoor positioning through inquiring the vicinal handsets. The practicality of the system architecture is also proved by the outcome of a test campaign.