Navigation starts with positioning. The GPS module can determine an exact location outdoors with the most possible accuracy of five meters, but when it comes to finding a location indoors, GPS falls down on accurate user positioning. The GPS signals get weaker or totally lost inside buildings as they travel through the roofs and walls. Sometimes, GPS’ bias range may be even larger than the indoor destination itself, a small bakery shop inside of a large mall, or a certain room at the university campus or office building.

Businesses are actively leveraging the advantages of indoor navigation apps; the indoor navigation market will earn $29.27 billion in 2023.

Developers have created a few solutions for indoor navigation, including beacons, Wi-Fi Positioning System (WPS) and Visual Positioning Service (VPS) — but they are limited in their accuracy, and there are several drawbacks to each.

Beacons are the second-most used navigation technology, but they were initially utilized to detect potential shoppers nearby and send marketing messages to their devices. Retailers can send push notifications to shoppers who walk in the stores; fast food chains attempt to provide clients with coupons, alerts and even employment opportunities when they are near. Visitors at the festivals and stadiums are prompted to get event schedules and real-time offers to their devices.

At the moment, beacons are also used as a solution for indoor navigation throughout airports and shopping malls. On average beacon-based positioning reaches accuracy of five to six meters. But it is not accurate enough for office buildings and tighter spaces where six meters is enough space for two companies to exist.

Beacons-based indoor navigation has other drawbacks like the cost of each individual beacon of $10–20 per item; requirement for three and more devices to position a user’s device at the range of 10 to 100 meters, and the need to change their batteries every 1–2 years. That’s why we need a better solution.

Wi-Fi technology gives one of the cheapest and easiest methods to implement indoor positioning as it works on the pre-existing infrastructure. Wi-Fi positioning system (WPS) relies on the received signal strength indication (RSSI) measurements from multiple Wi-Fi access points and creates Wi-Fi fingerprints in the building. Accuracy varies from five to 15 metres and can depend on the number of available networks in each individual venue and other factors.

Apple’s Indoor Wi-Fi positioning system is being successfully used in many airports throughout the world, however its accuracy is not enough for precise wayfinding at universities, hospitals, or office buildings.

A new technology, Wi-Fi RTT, could bring the necessary accuracy to indoor positioning. Instead of measuring signal strength, a Wi-Fi router measures “Round-Trip-Time” — which is the time it takes for a signal to be sent directly to the user’s device, plus any additional time required to acknowledge that the signal has been received. This allows us to figure out how far away the user is from certain WiFi routers, and it’s extremely accurate too.

The main limitation of the technology adoption is that currently the Wi-Fi RTT feature is only supported by Android Pie devices.

Google is one of the pioneers in trying to figure out indoor positioning with the help of VPS technology that uses camera to determine a user’s location by recognizing features in the environment. This method is still in beta, and there is no guarantee that it will be released to the public anytime soon. And even if it is, most offices look similar. So, will this new tech really be able to differentiate one office from another?

Augmented reality (AR) offers a potential solution to improve indoor positioning accuracy. AR technology uses visual markers to achieve extremely accurate positioning of literally a couple of millimeters. The markers are recognized by AR frameworks such as ARKit by Apple or ARCore by Google and point the app where the user is located to guide them with virtual navigation signs to the destination point.

A small building requires from 10 to 20 markers placed at the doorway, at the halls or in the elevators. The markers could be poster-like images containing distinct asymmetric patterns and must be pre-scanned for further recognition.

Mapping of the building requires using pre-existing maps or creating a new map by measuring and placing all of the walls, doors, hallways and rooms on the map along with the visual markers placement data. Apple’s Indoor Maps tool now allows business owners to create standardized indoor maps of their premises, which can be utilized for AR indoor navigation later on.

Though these technologies are still in development, the solutions for improving AR-based indoor navigation are already known. Implementing them is the next step for business owners who want their premises to be easily found by customers. Retail industry anticipates the most promising solutions by directing shoppers right to the products they are looking for.

Author: Andrew Makarov, Augmented Reality Lead Solution Architect at MobiDev

Why Augmented Reality-based Indoor Navigation Is a New Trend in AR Development was originally published in AR/VR Journey: Augmented & Virtual Reality Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.