Evolution of Indoor Positioning Technologies: A Survey

TLDR

Indoor positioning systems use sensors and communication technologies to locate objects indoors, attracting market interest, yet existing surveys lack a comprehensive classification scheme and quickly become outdated in this rapidly evolving field. This paper aims to provide a comprehensive technological perspective of indoor positioning systems. The authors classify existing approaches into a structured framework to guide review and discussion. They compare approaches and outline evolving trends in indoor positioning technologies.

Abstract

Indoor positioning systems (IPS) use sensors and communication technologies to locate objects in indoor environments. IPS are attracting scientific and enterprise interest because there is a big market opportunity for applying these technologies. There are many previous surveys on indoor positioning systems; however, most of them lack a solid classification scheme that would structurally map a wide field such as IPS, or omit several key technologies or have a limited perspective; finally, surveys rapidly become obsolete in an area as dynamic as IPS. The goal of this paper is to provide a technological perspective of indoor positioning systems, comprising a wide range of technologies and approaches. Further, we classify the existing approaches in a structure in order to guide the review and discussion of the different approaches. Finally, we present a comparison of indoor positioning approaches and present the evolution and trends that we foresee.