Indoor localization and guidance using portable smartphones

Indoor guidance is becoming a significant issue with the increasing number of buildings. This paper describes an Android based indoor map guidance system that assists and guides visitors inside public buildings (e.g. schools, shopping malls, airports, museums, exhibition centers). It utilizes NFC (Near Field Communication) technology and QR (Quick Response) Codes, which are low cost, to determine the location as well as to provide navigation within the buildings. Also, it provides a variety of helpful features such as finding destination, calculating shortest path, storing car parking location, giving feedback to building management, entering surveys for restaurants and coffee shops, finding nearest toilet and making donation. In addition, the system is bilingual and available in both English and Arabic versions. The developed system relies on a server that contains its web server, map server and spatial database. For wide accessibility, the whole system is developed using open source and freely-available software. For example, (a) the Android SDK is used to develop the client interface, (b) the Apache server is used for the web server, (c) Google sketch up and Quantum GIS are used to draw the floor plans, (d) Postgre SQL/PostGIS is used for spatial database to store the drawn floor plans, and (e) MapServer (MS4W) is used for map server to retrieve and draw the stored floor plans from the spatial database. Thus far, the developed mobile application has been fully evaluated and validated for use in a smart campus environment, which has been encapsulated in a test case study delineated herein.