A comparative analysis of standardized technologies for providing indoor geolocation functionality

Indoor geolocation technologies are being developed at an ever increasing rate. The ability to provide the function of geolocation of a mobile device without the need for external hardware has been a great challenge to researchers and technology companies alike. The challenge stems from the fact that none of the available technologies within mobile handsets meet the performance and functional requirements to enable the trivial development of and indoor geolocation technology. Research is required to evaluate the performance of several technological options and the possible combination of radio and non-radio-based technologies to provide the desired functionality. In this paper, we present measurement results to demonstrate the variance of accuracy of magnetometer measurements within a popular mobile handset to question the possibility of developing an indoor geolocation solution relying solely on this technology.