A Unified Approach to Uncertainty-Aware Ubiquitous Localisation of Mobile Users

Abstract

Localisation is a standard feature in many mobile applications today, and there are numerous techniques for determining a user’s location both indoors and outdoors. The provided location information is often organised in a format tailored to a particular localisation system’s needs and restrictions, making the use of several systems in one application cumbersome. The presented approach models the details of localisation systems and uses this model to create a unified view on localisation in which special attention is paid to uncertainty coming from different localisation conditions and to its presentation to the user. The work discusses technical considerations, challenges and issues of the approach, and reports on a user study on the acceptance of a mobile application’s behaviour reflecting the approach. The results of the study show the suitability of the approach and reveal users’ preference toward automatic and informed changes they experienced while using the application.