Experience: Pushing Indoor Localization from Laboratory to the Wild

Abstract

While GPS-based outdoor localization has become a norm, very few indoor localization systems have been deployed and used. In this paper, we share our 5-year experience on the design, development and evaluation of a large-scale WiFi indoor localization system. We address practical challenges encountered to bridge the gap between indoor localization research in the laboratory and system deployment in the wild. The system is currently used in 1469 shopping malls, 393 office buildings and 35 hospitals across 35 cities to provide location service to millions of users on a daily basis. We hope the shared experience can benefit the design of real-world indoor localization systems and the practical problems identified can change the focus of indoor localization research. We released our dataset that contains fingerprints collected from 1469 shopping malls and one office building.