Localization of bluetooth low energy (BLE) devices using angle of arrival data

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Positioning or localization is important in many different applications. A robot's location on a dangerous zone, a shopper's location in a store, a package's location in a warehouse and a doctor's location in a hospital are all valuable pieces of information based on which indoor location based services (LBS) can be built. EKOOR makes hardware and software for solar-powered nodes that communicate using the Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) protocol. These nodes can communicate with smartphones and help the smartphone to be positioned. This project will involve designing an inexpensive, accurate indoor positioning system that uses off-the-shelf hardware and mobile phone platforms. Such a positioning system will enable EKOOR to extend its current indoor LBS platform to provide better indoor positioning and tracking for people and devices in shopping malls, retailers, airports, arenas and museums. Indoor positioning systems have existed for several years. Most existing systems estimate distances between nodes from signal strengths of received messages. Other techniques need specialized hardware. Existing systems typically provide positioning errors over 1 meter. This project will investigate the use of angles of arrival (AoA) of messages to improve positioning accuracy and reduce the error to less than 1 meter in indoor environments. My lab has developed accurate positioning algorithms that make use of estimated distances between nodes. Although our past work has not utilized AoA information, the framework developed in our algorithms will allow for this information to be handled easily. A lot of BLE hardware has entered the market in the last two years because of its anticipated importance in commercial applications. This project is relevant and important in extending the utility of this new technology in indoor positioning.