MaraudersMap

Inspiration

As construction technologies transcend present day limitations on size. We spend more-and-more time in the indoor environment. However, as our environment evolves we need services that compliment this change. Considering that bold GPS is unable to penetrate concrete structures (does not work indoors). There is a need for alternate technologies or services that enable location based services (LBS) such as navigation and localization in indoor environments such as Malls, Grocery Stores Universities and Hospitals. bold We believe that indoor localization services can not only help you find your classroom on the first day of school, it can help emergency services locate you in case of of a major health hazard such as fire or injury.

What it does

boldThe Marauder's Map is an indoor localization solution implemented on the Android Platform. bold Considering the sensors suit available on smartphones and their ubiquitous nature, they are the most suitable platform for a realistic and feasible solution to indoor localization challenges.

How we built it

The Marauder's Map combines dead reckoning (DR) and machine learning (ML) to predict the user's location in real time. Dead reckoning computes the next location of a user based on the previous location and direction estimate from the compass. We combined DR with Wi-Fi fingerprinting-based localization in an energy-efficient manner. Fingerprinting-based techniques deduce the location of a user based on previous knowledge of the environment.

Challenges we ran into

Wi-Fi fingerprints for a location change over time. This causes issues with maintaining localization accuracy over time. Environmental noise leads to disturbance in magnetic fields, negatively impacting dead reckoning. Wi-Fi scans consume quite a bit of energy and time on a smartphone. We had to find the right balance between the two.