The April 18 webinar is free, but you must register beforehand. A downloadable file of the webinar will be available roughly one week afterwards, in case you miss the live presentation. Speakers include Khaled Dessouky from TechnoCom Corporation, a company that supervised the trials; Ganesh Pattabiraman from NextNav and Norm Shaw from Polaris Wireless, two companies whose technologies underwent rigorous testing in the trials; and Greg Turetzky from CSR, a company closely involved in the process.

Testing Overview

Conducted by the Communications Security, Reliability, and Interoperability Council (CSRIC) of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Working Group 3 (WG3), the tests trialled thousands of attempted location fixes in four representative morphologies (dense urban, urban, suburban, rural) and various building types.

The massive R&D movement focus on consumer-level applications, that is, cell phones, but this work will also ultimately affect professional and high-precision uses of GNSS. Those involved in machine control for warehousing, industrial assembly, indoor and even underground mapping, construction both above- and underground, underground mining, utility work, and even forestry will find this of particular interest — any activity in areas where sky-view is limited or negligible.

Test Fixture (cart) used during indoor testing.

Today, well more than half of mobile phone calls are made inside buildings. The number of emergency calls roughly parallels that, and both figures are only projected to rise. The FCC has a clear mandate to bring E-911 capability to indoor calls.

The 2001 regulations governing such emergency calls required that both landlines and cellphones should provide the location of callers to within specific accuracy levels. Location information was to be sent transparently to public safety answering points (PSAPs), to dispatch fire/rescue/police personnel to the source the 911 call, and not just to the right street address, but to the right floor of a multi-storied building. That’s the driver for all this.

Widespread application of successful technology/ies meeting the indoor requirement, once determined, is the key to significant revenue for many parties, not least of them GNSS manufacturers and location-based services (LBS) providers.

GPS and augmented GPS technologies were only part of the cellphone solution, and other implementations included use of the cell signal itself along with an extensive database which can contain amongst other things signal attributes and network asset locations.

The WG-3 Locations Based Services (LBS) sub-group set about finding what technologies exist, how well they work and how they could be applied to E-911. Click here for the full report.

In the tests, Polaris Wireless used an RF pattern-matching/fingerprinting technique, Qualcomm used a hybrid assisted-GPS (A-GPS)/advanced forward link trilateration (AFLT) system, and NextNav used wireless beacon technology.

WG3 selected the San Francisco Bay Area for the Stage-1 Indoor Test Bed. The methodology centered on indoor testing in sample buildings within the most common wireless use environments, called morphologies: dense urban, urban, suburban, and rural.

Dense urban: Bldg. 2: One Front Street, San Francisco, California.

Urban: Bldg. 18: Super 8 Motel on O’Farrell St., San Francisco, California.

Suburban: Bldg. 8: 861 Shirley Avenue (house), Sunnyvale.

Rural: Bldg. 13: Gilroy Gaits, Beige Stable Building, Hollister, California.

Polygons surrounding areas containing 19 buildings were selected; the distribution of buildings tested was 6 dense urban, 5 urban, 6 suburban and 2 rural. 75 test points were selected by TechnoCom within these 19 buildings. Statistically significant samples of stationary test calls were placed from each test point using multiple test devices for each of the 3 location technologies under test by NextNav, Polaris Wireless, and Qualcomm.

More than 13,000 valid test calls were collected across the test points for each of the three technologies. Broad, representative wireless industry participation in the test bed meant that Polaris’ results were aggregated over AT&T’s and T-Mobile’s networks; Qualcomm’s results were aggregated over Sprint’s and Verizon’s networks; and NextNav operated essentially as a standalone overlay location network.

A certified land surveyor provided indoor ground-truth accuracy to compare test-call locations. The certified accuracy was +/-1 cm horizontal and +/-2 cm vertical.

The test results show the location-performance attributes under test: horizontal location accuracy, vertical accuracy, yield, time to first fix (TTFF), and reported uncertainty.

NextNav Summary Indoor Accuracy Statistics.

Polaris Summary Indoor Accuracy Statistics.

Qualcomm Summary Indoor Accuracy Statistics.

Dense Urban Environment

Satellite signals (in this instance, GPS) have, of course, significant challenges in penetrating large buildings. Consequently, AGPS fall-back modes, such as AFLT, were experienced frequently. Accuracy degraded as expected when GPS fixes were not attained. While a surprising proportion of hybrid fixes were experienced, even at test points where one would not expect a satellite signal to penetrate, the quality of the hybrid fixes was in general significantly degraded compared to GPS fixes.

RF finger-printing experienced its best performance in the dense urban setting. This is probably a combination of a confined environment that could be extensively calibrated and many RF cell sites and handoff boundaries that could be leveraged in creating a good RF fingerprint map of the dense urban center.

The best observed performance in the dense urban setting was that of the dedicated terrestrial (beacon) location system — a new infrastructure. However, due to multipath, location fixes that may be relatively close in absolute distance (for example, 40 meters away) are often located in a building across the street, in a neighboring building, or even across a few blocks from the test point.

Urban Environment

Each individual test building in the urban morphology produced different challenges, and the three technologies under test met them in varying degrees.

A major-league baseball stadium created a situation where AGPS fallback fixes could be very far away due to the exposed RF propagation outside the structure in which the test points were located. Stadium structure created challenges to RF fingerprinting at some test points.

A convention center created in some cases an environment that was deep indoors but with very strong cellular signal from cell sites inside the building. This made the beacon-based location system perform poorer than in most other test points, since attenuation to different directions in the outside world was particularly strong in those scenarios. AGPS and RF fingerprinting relied on the cell sites inside the structure to create adequate location fixes.

An older building of comparatively heavy construction, with a large atrium in its middle, produced widely varying results based on distance from windows or the atrium. Again, the phenomenon of apparent location in a building across the street was seen for both NextNav and Qualcomm. RF fingerprinting fixes appeared to cluster about the larger reflectors in this urban corner of San Francisco, which happened to be mostly across the streets from the target building.

A motel building demonstrated the unique challenge with indoor location: absolute distances (like 50 or 150 meters) which may have meant much in assessing outdoor performance mean less for the indoors, since emergency dispatch to the wrong building or even the wrong block could be easily encountered at those distances. A location across the street is certainly better than one a few or many blocks away but it may still leave some human expectations unmet.

A tall condominium building in a (non-dense) urban downtown San Jose created relatively poor AGPS performance, uneven beacon system performance, and RF fingerprinting performance that degraded with the height of the test point. All of the above factors related to each of the urban buildings, combined with a generally lower cell site density for fall back (than in dense urban), resulted ultimately in an aggregate urban performance that is slightly worse than the dense urban performance.

Suburban Environment

The effect of smaller buildings with lighter construction and more spacing between buildings quickly became evident. Outstanding GPS performance, almost as good as outdoors, can be achieved inside single-story homes. Similarly outstanding performance is achieved on average by the beacon-based location technology under similar circumstances. RF fingerprinting appears to suffer from performance degradation compared to more dense morphologies in the city.

The AGPS performance predictably changes as the suburban buildings become bigger and higher. The terrestrial beacon-based network continues to perform well in the larger suburban. RF finger-printing shows some enhancement relative to the smaller suburban buildings, but still shows most of the location fixes along the roads, highways or reflecting buildings.

Rural Environment

Large one-story structures with metal roofs limited the available number of satellite signals available for trilateration. In these cases more hybrid fixes were experienced with a concomitant increase in the spread of the location fixes about the true location. The performance of the beacon-based network was less impacted by the metallic roof (since that roof had more impact on sky visibility rather than on side visibility towards terrestrial beacons). Consequently the performance was somewhat better than for AGPS. The performance of the beacon-based network would of course depend on the density of its deployed beacons covering the rural area, which was sufficient in the case of the rural test polygon.

RF finger-printing showed reduced performance relative to the suburban environment due to the large spacing between surveyed roads (where calibration is done) and the rural structures as well as the lower density of cell sites.

Conclusion

Finally, the report concludes: “Stage-1 of the test bed contained in the end only three technologies to test. With the complexity of the task at hand, this created a good learning opportunity for both CSRIC WG3 members and the test house. However, there are a number of technologies that are either in use for location based services (LBS) or that are emerging which should be evaluated for their potential to contribute to the improvement of indoor wireless E911.

“Indoor wireless E911 is a critical public safety issue that will only increase.”

One key factor that the report does not at all address is relative cost of implementing these respective solutions. The same can be said for timeline. While some observers have concluded that “NextNav came out on top,” this solution in particular can be presumed to face much greater challenges for full or nationwide implementation than the other two, which rely largely on already existing infrastructures.

Another round of E-911 test-bed activities will ensue once funding and management issues are resolved. See CSRIC WG 3 LBS Subgroup member Greg Turetzky’s “Expert Advice” column from GPS World for perspective and a forward look.

Once again, for an up-close and personal look at the CSRIC Bay Area indoor tests, register beforehand here for Thursday’s webinar, April 18. A downloadable file of the webinar will be available roughly two weeks afterwards, in case you miss the live presentation.

A LocataNet will provide the vitally important high-precision positioning required by the VRC to perform rigorous, consistent and repeatable scientific evaluation of the new vehicle crash avoidance systems, Locata said. VRC crash tests produce the “Top Safety Pick” ratings that have helped consumers make informed decisions about buying safer cars for years. Now research into new technology systems, which allows cars to avoid crashes in the first place, will elevate the value of the institute’s safety ratings, Locata said.

Carrying out these new tests is not a trivial exercise, Locata said. The VRC will have to research and install new robotic and positioning technology to enable the required level of precision. The LocataNet installation will furnish the IIHS with a locally controlled positioning system that is seamless over all of the VRC test areas, enabling extremely reliable automated positioning of vehicles. The newly expanded facility includes a continuous vehicle test track that traverses not only open-air roadway areas, but also a vast 300- by 700-foot fully covered testing area. Locata’s ability to provide centimeter-accurate, locally controlled positioning across both outdoor and indoor environments gives the IIHS flexibility to design a positioning system to meet their vital test requirements, while also allowing easy upgrade and expansion in the future, Locata said.

The IIHS will use Locata positioning to control automated testing of frontal collision avoidance and other safety systems.

The dramatic video footage from IIHS crash tests draws extensive media coverage, which becomes a powerful public incentive for automakers to improve the safety of their vehicles. The media, auto industry and policymakers look to the IIHS as a leader in highway safety research, and the expanded VRC will enable the IIHS to play a major role in the emerging area of crash avoidance testing, Locata said. IHS’s YouTube channel shows crash tests and dicusses the ratings system.

“Crash tests and research conducted at the VRC have helped drive life-saving improvements in vehicle designs,” said Adrian Lund, IIHS president. “Our new state-of-the-art facility will allow us to also evaluate emerging vehicle-based systems intended to prevent crashes or lessen their severity, so that we can encourage the entire industry to adopt the most effective ones.”

To do this new research, it is essential to conduct tests under identical, controlled condition, Locata said. With Locata, IIHS researchers will be able to ensure precise positioning data is available in all of its test areas. In places where GPS signals would be unreliable or unavailable when tests are conducted under cover, Locata seamlessly delivers consistent, reliable and accurate positioning, available everywhere, the company said. It will help IIHS carry out automated, identical testing to allow “apples to apples” comparisons of motor vehicles. This is a critical advancement for testing systems that will save many lives in the future, Locata said.

The planned Locata-enabled covered test track.

The Locata-enabled covered test track building (artist’s concept).

Here is a video tour of the VRC.

Locata technology provides GPS-style, ground-based positioning covering local areas ranging in size from a parking lot to thousands of square miles. It provides precise positioning either in combination with, or in the total absence of, GPS. It is the first technology that can replicate GPS’s precise positioning capability without using satellites.

Locata’s current devices have already delivered new positioning capabilities to professional applications in mining, aviation, warehousing, and as “GPS backup systems” for important strategic areas. Locata is being trialed by several government bodies in urban areas as a locally controlled positioning infrastructure in applications for transport, first responders, surveyors, and container port automation. As Locata devices are further miniaturized over the next few years, this technology promises to be a game changer for the positioning capabilities available to indoor, mobile and smartphone applications, Locata said.

The partners met at the VRC on February 14 to plan out the Locata installation. From left are Robert “Bo” Jones, IIHS engineer; Paul Perrone, president, Perrone Robotics; Geoff Hoekstra, business development, Perrone Robotics; Adrian Lund, president, IIHS; David Zuby, chief research officer, IIHS; Nunzio Gambale, Locata CEO; Jimmy LaMance, Locata. The auto is the result of a crash test conducted that day.

“GPS satellites are in a constant state of motion,” said Nunzio Gambale, CEO of Locata Corporation. “In many environments, this makes it impossible to achieve the level of reliable positioning required for meaningful scientific testing. Locata readily steps into these environments to deliver an always-on, unfailing and superbly accurate positioning signal. We are honored to be chosen as the positioning technology that helps the IHS research, test and drive forward the development of life-saving automotive initiatives. This Locata installation at the legendary Vehicle Research Center will be the most publicly visible jewel in our crown to date. Relationships like this confirm the value of years of hard work we put in to invent this amazing and unique technology.”

“The Locata team is thrilled to see how rapidly our systems are being taken up by the creme-de-la-creme of the positioning industry,” continued Gambale. “We know this VRC testing is world-first, groundbreaking work that has enormous global and social value. It’s wonderful to think that our work may contribute to one day saving my life—or yours.”

Part of LBMA’s mandate is to foster research, innovation and pilot projects that push the boundaries of place-based marketing. Through this initiative, LBMA has partnered with several top-tier global brands carefully selected from among LBMA’s large network of marketing affiliates to introduce the new technology to consumers. The technology will be introduced in a series of test launches at major entertainment events throughout the summer, before making it widely to marketers in the fall, the association said.

Focus awareness combines traditional GPS-location awareness with data on where mobile users are aiming their smartphones. Focus-based technology enables new kinds of apps in which users aim their phones to engage with one another as they watch events simultaneously — for example to connect, chat or vote on the shared subject of focus. Focus-awareness also allows marketers to chart the shifting momentum in crowds.

The partnership comes as demand grows among LBMA’s network for mechanisms to enhance context-awareness in mobile. Marketers want to know how many phones are engaged with their apps as events are happening (heat), who those users are, where they are looking, and how the crowd’s engagement is dynamically changing moment to moment — all capabilities of CrowdOptic’s technology.

“Our vision of the future is new apps that dynamically adapt based on knowing what activities people in a crowd are watching and engaging in, as well as joining people with shared interests together, right there in the moment,” said Asif Khan, founder and president of LBMA.

“Focus is an emerging mobile category that will play a significant role in the next generation of location services,” said Brent Iadarola, Global Research Director of Mobile & Wireless Communications at Frost & Sullivan. “In contrast to augmented reality, which combines location and mobile Internet search to provide information on landmarks in static environments, focus-based services enable the tracking and tagging of objects (or individuals) in moving or dynamic environments. By enabling mobile users to point their phones at moving objects or people to access real-time information about their subject of interest, this area of technology in which CrowdOptic is a pioneer clearly presents some very unique and lucrative avenues for hyper-targeted marketing promotions, advertising, and mobile coupons.”

CrowdOptic is in use around the world in apps that enable users to “aim their phone” to act or interact — whether to discuss, report or discover other people based on their shared focus.  The company powers a range of applications which vary from finding friends in a crowd, to aiming a phone to vote, to aiming to alternate views of a live broadcast, to aiming to connect with athletes and celebrities at live events.  The technology works both through an app and anytime without an app, by historically mining the standard metadata tags embedded in shared photo images. The mechanisms used to acquire context beyond location include continuous streams of GPS, compass and triangulation algorithms illuminating common points of focus between mobile users.

The LBMA will begin to introduce these projects which leverage the CrowdOptic platform for top global brands beginning in the summer of 2013.

About LBMA – http://thelbma.com/

The Location Based Marketing Association is an international group dedicated to fostering research, education and collaborative innovation at the intersection of people, places, and media. Our goal is simple: To educate, share best practices, establish guidelines for growth and to promote the services of member companies to brands and other content-related providers. The over 600 members of the LBMA include retailers, restaurant chains, agencies, advertisers, media buyers, software and services providers, and wireless companies.

About CrowdOptic – www.crowdoptic.com

Analysts say this is a sign that the war over indoor mobile location services is heating up.

Apple’s acquisition of WiFiSLAM illustrates how 2013 will be a breakout year for indoor location as initial trials shift to technology deployments, application development, and revenues, according to ABI Research.

Two-year-old start-up WiFiSLAM has developed ways for mobile apps to detect a phone user’s location in a building using Wi-Fi signals, according to the Wall Street Journal. It has been offering the technology to application developers for indoor mapping and new types of retail and social networking apps. The company has only a few employees. Co-founders include former Google software engineering intern Joseph Huang.

“The move comes as Apple continues to build its arsenal against Google in mapping,” according to Wall Street Journal blogger Jessica E. Lessin. “It debuted its own mapping service last year to poor reviews and user complaints about inaccurate data. Apple chief executive Tim Cook apologized for the quality of the product, and Apple has continued to improve it.

“Google already offers indoor mapping in certain locations like airports, shopping centers and sports venues,” Lessin said.

ABI Research’s latest report “Indoor Location in Retail: Where Is the Money?” provides an overview of all major technologies, revenue opportunities and competitive environment. “Analyzing across 10 retail sectors, we are seeing a lot of cross pollination as companies combine handset and infrastructure based Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and sensor location technologies. The emergence of public venue small cells and carrier Wi-Fi will also create a new wave of opportunity,” commented Patrick Connolly, senior analyst. “As a result, we expect to see a flurry of acquisitions and partnerships in 2013, as major players start to make their moves.”

In support of these technologies, ABI Research is also forecasting smartphone retail apps to break 1 billion downloads, while indoor maps will break 1 million buildings, over the forecast period.

The technology uses low-power, low-cost sensors and the device concept is small enough to clip on a belt. It also doesn’t need any existing internal infrastructure.

“We are excited about the many possibilities this cutting-edge technology opens up and the impact it can have in many different situations,” said Geoff Smithson, technology director, sensing systems, at Cambridge Consultants. “It could be used to help locate firefighters in smoke-filled buildings, for example, or to pinpoint the closest doctor in a hospital during an emergency — or to track offenders during home curfews. We are just starting to see the potential of this approach and the diverse demand for this type of low-energy, highly accurate system.”

Indoor tracking systems, which process data from one or more sources of location information to estimate where a person or object is located, are not new. But they often rely on RF signals from Wi-Fi access points or custom infrastructure, poor-quality GPS signals or expensive, high-quality sensors. The availability of low-cost smartphone components — including accelerometers, gyroscopes, magnetometers and pressure sensors — has enabled a new generation of location devices and applications, when combined with a tailored Bayesian algorithm to fuse the information.

The new technology platform can be embedded in an existing design or operate as a stand-alone unit, with options to compute the location locally or transmit the information to a remote system that can process the data before visualizing it on a smartphone app.

“Our biggest challenges were developing an algorithm which optimally combines the data from GPS and the other sensors, and overcoming the issues of using such low-cost sensors in a system without any absolute location reference,” said Smithson.

Cambridge Consultants specializes in developing low-cost, low-power connected devices for clients with a team of experts with sensing, wireless and software  engineering expertise. The latest technology builds on the company’s tracking and location systems experience in a variety of market sectors ranging from defense and security to consumer, industrial, and oil and gas.

NAO Cloud integrates the NAO Campus Software Deployment Kit (SDK), and enables customers and partners to deploy NAO Campus, Pole Star’s indoor location solution, in just a few hours, by using cloud-based software tools as well as positioning databases already available and shared by worldwide partner program members.

In addition, third parties will have access to NAO Cloud’s crowdsourcing capabilities, eliminating field interventions for a simpler, faster and more affordable deployment and maintenance process, Pole Star said. Behavioral analytics or geofencing are also supported by NAO Cloud to maximize the monetization of value added location-based services.

The NAO Cloud platform targets a wide range of businesses such as venue owners, advertising platform providers, application developers, global solution integrators or network operators. NAO Cloud makes deployment, integration in mobile apps and maintenance of indoor positioning services a simple process, from a single venue to a worldwide multi-site coverage, Pole Star said.

“The indoor location services market has reached maturity. Multi-venue owners, marketing agencies and major telcos understand the challenges and the value of hyper-local information and real-time interactions with customers and related Indoor Location Analytics. Indoor positioning is the core technology that brings high value,” said Christian Carle, CEO of Pole Star. “NAO Cloud is the result of years of innovation and deep market experience through very large and complex field deployments around the world.”

In 2012, Pole Star achieved several major innovation milestones, such as the integration of Bluetooth Low Energy and Inertial Sensors in its NAO Campus fusion engine, in addition to Map Data, Wi-Fi and GPS signals. The dynamic combination of these technologies provides today the best indoor location performance results in the market, while addressing any type of building and minimizing network infrastructure, deployment and maintenance costs, Pole Star said.

The NAO Campus solution is now available for more than 80% of the smartphone market, compliant with Android and iPhone devices and embedded in consumer applications on the Google Play Marketplace and the Apple App Store.

Today, Pole Star’s indoor location solutions have been deployed in more than 43 million square feet, in 15 countries such as airports (Paris Charles de Gaulle), shopping centers in Europe and North-America, museums and department stores. In 2011, Pole Star opened its North American headquarters in Palo Alto and has expanded its international presence in 2012, building deep partnerships with companies in Europe, North-America, Asia, Australia and the Middle East. Finally, at the end of 2012, in time for the holiday season, Pole Star launched, its “living lab” mobile application, Mall Buddy, that covers 9 of the biggest malls in Silicon Valley, from San Francisco to San Jose and demonstrates the worldwide extension capability of Indoor location services.

“Accurate location information is of critical value to ensuring the quick dispatch, arrival and delivery of what is often life-saving assistance,” noted Rob Goudswaard of Philips Home Monitoring. “After reviewing the market, we concluded that Skyhook’s location network and technology capabilities were consistent with our requirements for enabling timely and accurate response.”

“If an individual experiences a fall or other emergency, quickly getting help to the right location is of vital importance,” said Michael Shean of Skyhook. “Skyhook is proud to partner with Lifeline, the leading medical alert service, in order to enhance the safety and care that Lifeline provides to all of its customers.”

In a fully revised and updated 163-page report, Grizzly Analytics gives an up-to-date analysis and comprehensive overview of indoor location positioning R&D. Included is information on the research activity of all the major mobile companies — Google, Microsoft, Samsung, Apple, Nokia, RIM, Cisco, Qualcomm, Broadcom, STMicroElectronics, Sony Ericsson and others — and also more than 30 start-up companies that are actively bringing indoor location services to market.

“These technologies are poised to revolutionize smartphone usage by enabling GPS-style mapping, navigation, local search, check-ins, location-sharing and other location-based services to work indoors in malls, megastores, offices, airports, casinos and other big indoor places,” according to a statement by Grizzly Analytics. “Indoor location will also transform commerce, enabling searching for items on store shelves, sending deals and promotions to nearby customers, advertisements for nearby stores in malls, and more. Location services are also entering the enterprise, with indoor asset tracking, employee search, and more.

“In this updated technology trend report, Indoor Location Positioning: Research Pipelines, Start-ups and Predictions, Grizzly Analytics answers the questions you have about this new technology. What approaches are being researched by different companies? Which companies have mature research? What are the gaps in each company’s research that they are likely to fill by acquiring start-up companies? Which start-up companies are likely to be acquired or to emerge successful in the market? What areas of technology are not yet addressed by start-ups, and remain open to new entrepreneurs and investors?”

A related report, Indoor Location Solutions and Services: Challenges, Opportunities and Market Outlook, is also available from Research and Markets.