iPhone indoor location based app

Question

I am researching how to create an app for my work that allows clients to download the app (preferably via the app store) and using some sort of wifi triangulation/fingerprints be able to determine their location for essentially an interactive tour.

Now, my question specifically is what is the best route to take for the iPhone? None of the clients will be expected to have jail broken iPhones.

To my understanding this requires the use of the wifi data which is a private api therefore not meeting the app store requirements. The biggest question I have is how does American Museum of Natural History get away with using the same technology, but still available on the app store?

if you're unfamiliar with American Museum of Natural History interactive tour app, see here: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/amnh-explorer/id381227123?mt=8

Thank you for any clarification you can provide.

Aglet

Answer 1

I'm one of the developers of the AMNH Explorer app you're referencing.

Explorer uses the Cisco "Mobility Services Engine" (MSE) behind the scenes to determine its location. This is part of their Cisco wifi installation. The network itself listens for devices in the museum and estimates their position via Wifi triangulation. We do a bit of work in the app to "ask" the MSE for our current location.

Doing this work on the network side was (and still is) the only available option for iOS since, as you've found, the wifi scanning functions are considered to be private APIs.

If you'd like to build your own system and mobile app for doing something similar, you might start with the MSE.

Alternatively, we've built the same tech from Explorer into a new platform called Meridian which provides location-based services on both iOS and Android. Definitely get in touch with us via the website if you're interested in building on that.

Update 6/1/2017

Thought I would update this old answer - AMNH is no longer using the Wifi-based system I describe above, as of a few years ago. They now use an installation of a few hundred battery-powered Bluetooth Beacons (also provided by Meridian). The device (iOS or Android) scans for nearby beacons and, based on their known locations and RSSI values, triangulates a position. You can read more about it in this article.

Holster

Wow, thank you Nick. I tried so hard to find on the internet how it was actually done. I will check out your advise and definitely keep in touch. Seriously, I am so glad you found this. Awesome help – Aglet

Also, if you could give me an estimate of what something like this would cost for the required hardware. Our building is approx 7,000sf and single story. – Aglet

What is the precision of AMNH Explorer? – Ferde

Hi Nick, Since iOS doesn't allow you to integrate custom maps in apps, how did you guys implement the map of the museum in the Explorer app? I'm interested to know because I'm currently developing a similar app. – Ogre

@Ogre Hi Isuru - we implemented our mapping system from scratch using standard iOS techniques: bitmap images, Core Image vector drawing, and the like. It was a lot of work! – Holster

@NickFarina Oh I see. I bet. May I ask why you did not go with a solution like this? But anyway u guys have done a good job. Thanks a lot for the info. :) – Ogre

Answer 2

Navizon offers an indoor positioning solution that works for iOS as well as any other platform. You can check it out here: http://www.navizon.com/product-navizon-indoor-triangulation-system

It works by triangulating the WiFi signals transmitted by the device. Since it doesn't require an app to run on the phone, it bypasses the iOS limitations and can locate any other WiFi device for that matter.

Teressaterete

Answer 3

Google recently launched an API called Maps Geolocation API. You can use it for indoor tracking of devices, which essentially can be used to achieve something similar to what AMNH's app does.

Institutive

Answer 4

I would do this using Augmented Reality. There is a system sort of in place for this, the idea being that you place physical markers that have virtual information associated with them. I believe the system I saw was a type of bar code. When a user holds up the phone with the app, the app uses the camera to read the code and then display information. This could easily be used to make a virtual tour type app distributable through the app store and not even require a WIFI or 3/4G connection. This assumes that you simply load your information and store it locally with your app. Then to update it you simply push an update through the app store. Another solution is to use a SOAP/REST service and provide the information in that way, and this does not use private API's, though it does require some form of internet connection. For this you can see a question I asked about this topic a little bit ago:

SOAP/XML Tutorials Question

In addition, you could load a map of your tour location, and based on what code is scanned you can locate the user on the map and give suggested routes based on interests etc.

I found this tutorial recently on augmented reality, I haven't gone through it, but if its anything like the rest of Ray's tutorials, it will be extremely helpful.

http://www.raywenderlich.com/3997/introduction-to-augmented-reality-on-the-iphone

I'll stick around to clarify any questions or other concerns you may have with your app.

Piccadilly

Thanks for the suggestion but my boss wants it to be less of a process(no scanning qr codes). Do you have any suggestions on using wifi triangulation without going against apples agreements? and p.s. Ray is awesome! I've learned so much from his site. – Aglet

As you noted in your other comment, placing 3 or so routers in fixed locations and then using trilateration to give an estimate to your location would be the other method that you could use. I've never actually done anything like this so I couldn't give you to many specifics but a similar question: #2605122 seems to be up your alley. Your first step seems to be to time a response from a router, then setting up 2 more. After that you should be able to just plug into the formulas. Good luck! – Piccadilly

Answer 5

To augment the original answer for devs who were using Cisco MSE for indoor location - now they have an iOS and Android SDK which enables you to do indoor location using the MSE. A simulator can be used as well to develop the app without implementing the infrastructure to start with : https://developer.cisco.com/site/cmx-mobility-services/downloads/

Elisabetta

Answer 6

For indoor location you can use Bluetooth LE beacons since it's a very accessible technology nowadays, there are several methods:

• Trilateration: it uses 3 beacons, but with the noise and attenuation of Bluetooth signals, it gets quite difficult to determine the exact position and also it's not easy to use more than 3 beacons to increase accuracy.

• Levenberg Marquadt method: used to solve non-linear squares problems showed good results on indoor positioning.

• Dead Reckoning method: using the motion co-processor of the device, giving an initial position you can calculate the moving path of the device. Not that easy to implement anyway.

I wrote a post on the topic, you can find more info here: http://bits.citrusbyte.com/indoor-positioning-with-beacons/

And you can use this iOS app for your own indoor positioning experiments: https://github.com/citrusbyte/beacons-positioning

Downturn

Answer 7

I doubt the American Museum is actually using private APIS; you'll probably find the routers that have been setup serve different responses to each other, so the app can detect it's position in the museum.

If you are looking for a cheaper to way to do the same task, you could have signs with QR codes, and use an open source library to let users scan these barcodes as they move through the museum, and update the onscreen content accordingly. On an even more low tech level, you can just tag each area with unique numbers, and distinguish that way.

Millsaps

Well the Qr alternative won't really work for what we need, when you say routers serving different responses can you elaborate? It only needs to be room sensitive not specific locations, if I placed a router in each room would that be a solution? – Aglet