Efficient Indoor Proximity and Separation Detection for Location Fingerprinting

Detecting proximity and separation among mobile targets is a basic mechanism for many location-based services (LBSs) and requires continuous positioning and tracking. However, realizing both mechanisms for indoor usage is still a major challenge. Positioning methods like GPS cannot be applied there, and for distance calculations the particular building topology has to be taken into account. To address these challenges, this paper presents a novel approach for indoor proximity and separation detection, which uses location fingerprinting for indoor positioning of targets and walking distances for modeling the respective building topology. The approach applies efficient strategies to reduce the number of messages transmitted between the mobile targets and a central location server, thus saving the targets’ battery power, bandwidth, and other resources. The strategies are evaluated in terms of efficiency and application-level accuracy based on numerous emulations on experimental data.