Indoor positioning based on global positioning system signals

Abstract

The Global Positioning System (GPS) is highly reliable and accurate when used outdoors. However, in indoor environments, due to the additional signal loss incurred by the walls of the buildings, the detection and decoding of GPS signals becomes a difficult task. As a solution to the indoor area coverage problem, an indoor positioning system based on GPS repeaters and a modified positioning algorithm is proposed, designed and tested. A prototype indoor positioning system for 1D/2D positioning is built using directional GPS antennas and low noise amplifiers (LNA). The modified positioning algorithm is used for the real time processing of captured live GPS data. All the system components are integrated and positioning is obtained for the evaluation of the system performance. Results of the experiments show that the proposed system can be used for indoor positioning in locations where there is no GPS signal reception. The proposed system facilitates the continuation of GPS services indoors with hardware additions to the buildings and only a software update to a standard GPS receiver.