Next Generation Indoor Positioning Systems（次世代IPS市場の最新事情）

Outdoor positioning systems are evolving and becoming more accurate largely due to increasing numbers of satellites and better algorithms which can calculate more precise location information in real time. This in turn is enabling a new wave of IoT services in industries such as transportation, construction, gaming, and logistics. Unfortunately, however, indoor positioning remains a more difficult issue to tackle as GPS and other wireless technologies often have limited coverage within buildings, and more advanced systems are needed in order to obtain accurate location down to the centimeter level. Fortunately, there has been significant progress made in recent years, and new solutions are coming on the market which will enable extremely accurate positioning data to be obtained indoors.

Current Indoor Positioning System Technology

Many indoor positioning systems (IPS) rely on Bluetooth technology, which uses a network of enabled beacons to calculate the location of devices indoors. The most popular positioning technology is known as received signal strength indication (RSSI), which measures the signal strength of a wireless connection and can estimate the location of a device within about one meter. However, newer methods have arrived on the market which are more accurate, such as angle of arrival (AoA)/angle of departure (AoD), which measures the angle at which a signal is received and can become accurate down to the centimeter level. Trilateration and triangulation are also often used to increase the accuracy of positioning information. And while Bluetooth-based systems are the most common in the industry largely due to cost, there are other technology options in the market. IPS based on other radio technologies (such as Wi-Fi), sound-based systems (such as SONAR), light-based systems (such as LiDAR), and inertial-based sensor networks can also be obtained in the market.