Beep: 3D indoor positioning using audible sound

• Published in: Second IEEE Consumer Communications and Networking Conference, 2005. CCNC. 2005 pp. 348 - 353
• Main Authors: Mandal, A., Lopes, C.V., Givargis, T., Haghighat, A., Jurdak, R., Baldi, P.
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 2005
• Subjects: Acoustic sensors; Application software; Global Positioning System; Hardware; Optical receivers; Pervasive computing; Roaming; Sensor phenomena and characterization; Ultrasonic imaging; Wireless sensor networks
• DOI: 10.1109/CCNC.2005.1405195
• ISBN: 9780780387843; 0780387848
• ISSN: 2331-9852

Rapid growth in the number of wireless enabled devices has led to an increased interest in location-aware applications. The backbone of such applications is provided by a location system. In this paper we present Beep, an indoor location system that senses audible sound. The use of audible sound makes our system cheap and easily deplorable to most existing roaming devices. Unlike positioning systems using ultrasound and infrared signals, Beep does not require the user to carry any kind of specialized hardware. Our system is based on standard 3D multilateration algorithms. However, the requirement of being able to locate existing devices, whose sound cards were not designed for high-precision signaling, introduces additional challenges to the location problem. This paper describes how those problems were solved and presents experimental results. Beep works with an accuracy of about 2 feet in more than 97% cases. The paper also describes a sensor deployment strategy that requires low sensor density and consequently low installation costs.