Campus-wide wireless indoor positioning with hybrid iBeacon and Wi-Fi system

The demand for indoor positioning and navigation is increasing exponentially in recent years. When more international students and visitors come to the university campus for study and academic activities, wireless indoor positioning and navigation by smartphones becomes a truly welcomed service. We propose a hybrid system by utilizing iBeacon within the Wi-Fi network with fingerprint technique, to implement the campus-wide indoor positioning. In this hybrid system, a certain number of Wi-Fi APs provide the umbrella coverage and positioning in campus, under the coverage the iBeacons precisely localize the mobile users in indoor areas. In this study an indoor test-bed is experimented. The results show that the hybrid system achieves a good level of accuracy, and proves to be an acceptable mobile application.