The anatomy of the anyplace indoor navigation service

Abstract

The pervasiveness of smartphones is leading to the uptake of a new class of Internet-based Indoor Navigation (IIN) services, which might soon diminish the need of Satellite-based localization technologies in urban environments. These services rely on geo-location databases that store spatial models along with wireless, light and magnetic signals used to localize users and provide better power efficiency and wider coverage than predominant approaches. In this article we overview Anyplace, an open, modular, extensible and scalable navigation architecture that exploits crowdsourced Wi-Fi data to develop a novel navigation service that won several international research awards for its utility and accuracy (i.e., less than 2 meters). Our MIT-licenced open-source software stack has to this date been used by thaousands of researchers and practitioners around the globe, with the public Anyplace service reaching over 100,000 real user interactions.