Step-level person localization through sparse sensing of structural vibration

Abstract

We describe a step-level indoor localization system which uses the ground vibration induced by human footsteps. Indoor localization is important for various smart building applications, including resources arrangement optimization, patient/customer tracking, etc. Geophones are used to measure the ground vibrations and time difference of arrival (TDoA) for different sensors are used to solve the multilateration localization problem. The advantages of this system include its sparsity and also its stability over time. Lesser dependency on instrument people is another upside of this system. The results of pilot tests show that this system can be successfully used for indoor localization.