Beacon-based indoor positioning and navigation system

Abstract

A system consisting of permanently installed Bluetooth Low Energy beacons at known indoor coordinates, a mobile application configured to scan beacon signals and estimate the user's location using fingerprinting and / or trilateration, and a cloud backend configured to manage devices, store fingerprints and maps, and calculate optimal indoor routes for display to the user.

Description

AREA OF INVENTION

[0001] The invention relates to indoor positioning devices that integrate BLE beacons, smartphone clients and cloud services to estimate user locations, calculate optimal routes and manage devices on a large scale. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

[0002] GPS performs poorly indoors due to signal attenuation and multipath propagation. This has led to the widespread use of Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons and smartphone clients, which determine position based on received signal strength, fingerprints, or angle-based methods with accuracy ranging from room-level to meter-level. BLE beacon systems are cost-effective, energy-efficient, and supported by Android and iOS. Modern Bluetooth direction finding (AoA / AoD) and optimized beacon density / placement improve accuracy and stability in no-line-of-sight environments compared to RSSI trilateration alone. Cloud-based implementations leverage managed IoT services to register devices, collect telemetry data, and scale storage and processing pipelines.This enables fleet management and analytics that go beyond internal device calculations, ensuring robust indoor navigation and object tracking. German utility model protection facilitates device / system claims and allows for rapid registration without content review. This makes product-related claims on beacon-based positioning systems and their components possible. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

[0003] The invention relates to a system consisting of permanently installed BLE beacons that transmit identifiers and telemetry data, a mobile application that scans beacon signals and estimates the user's location, and a cloud backend for device management, fingerprint storage, and calculation of optimal indoor routes. The app combines RSSI values, calibration fingerprints, and optional directional information for detailed navigation, while the cloud manages maps, restrictions, and dynamic updates to ensure precise navigation. A device management layer registers beacons, monitors their status, and updates configurations via a secure IoT service. Telemetry pipelines store scans for analysis and model improvements, thus supporting scalable operation in airports, hospitals, retail stores, and university campuses with millions of signals and hundreds of beacons. DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0004] The device comprises BLE beacons at known coordinates, each transmitting unique identifiers with configurable transmit power and adjustable advertising interval. Beacon placement and density are optimized using RSSI variability and attenuation models to achieve a balance between accuracy and power consumption. A mobile application on users' devices searches for nearby beacons and estimates their position using fingerprinting, trilateration, or hybrid algorithms. Calibration captures location-specific fingerprints to improve accuracy under multipath and NLOS conditions, typical of indoor environments. For higher precision, bearing-based arrival or departure angle tracking is supported, provided anchors or suitable beacons are installed. This enables sub-meter localization through phase difference processing via antenna arrays.The navigation engine calculates optimal routes on a building diagram, taking into account constraints such as accessibility, one-way streets, and dynamic closures, and provides detailed turn-by-turn directions with rerouting in case of signal loss or changing environmental conditions. A cloud backend registers the devices and manages digital maps, beacon inventories, and fingerprints. An IoT service handles secure device provisioning, message delivery, and the storage of scan telemetry and status metrics to support large-scale monitoring and analysis. The system provides APIs for synchronizing floor plans, points of interest (POIs), and routing rules, and delivers location updates and notifications to enterprise applications. Dashboards visualize beacon status, signal heatmaps, and positioning error statistics for continuous improvement.The beacon configuration parameters, including transmission power and advertising intervals, are optimized per zone to improve stability and accuracy while minimizing battery consumption. Higher transmission power can reduce errors but results in higher energy consumption. Lower density is acceptable with robust fingerprints and minimal loss of accuracy. The mobile app performs on-device filtering (e.g., Kalman / particle filtering) and outlier detection to stabilize positions and caches maps and fingerprints for offline operation. Synchronization with the cloud is delayed until a connection is re-established. Security measures include authenticated beacon deployment, signed configuration updates, encrypted telemetry channels, and privacy controls for user consent and data minimization in accordance with building policies.The architecture scales horizontally across different facilities and supports multi-tenant management, phased beacon deployment, and continuous model updates for fingerprint and path optimization. This enables reliable and easy-to-maintain indoor positioning services.

Claims

[1] A system consisting of permanently installed Bluetooth Low Energy beacons at known indoor coordinates, a mobile application configured to scan beacon signals and estimate the user's location using fingerprinting and / or trilateration, and a cloud backend configured to manage devices, store fingerprints and maps, and calculate optimal indoor routes for display to the user. [2] System according to claim 1, wherein direction determination is activated by means of approach angle or departure angle at anchor points or suitable beacons and the mobile application fuses direction information with RSSI to improve localization accuracy in non-line-of-sight conditions. [3] System according to claim 1, wherein the transmit power of the beacon, the advertising interval and the density per zone are optimized to balance accuracy, energy consumption and interference based on measured RSSI distributions and path loss models. [4] System according to claim 1, wherein an IoT service provides and authenticates beacons, collects telemetry and scan data from mobile apps, and manages device status and configurations to ensure scalable, secure operation in large facilities.