Indoor acoustic localization: a survey

Abstract

Applications of localization range from body tracking, gesture capturing, indoor plan construction to mobile health sensing. Technologies such as inertial sensors, radio frequency signals and cameras have been deeply excavated to locate targets. Among all the technologies, the acoustic signal gains enormous favor considering its comparatively high accuracy with common infrastructure and low time latency. Range-based localization falls into two categories: absolute range and relative range. Different mechanisms, such as Time of Flight, Doppler effect and phase shift, are widely studied to achieve the two genres of localization. The subcategories show distinguishing features but also face diverse challenges. In this survey, we present a comprehensive overview on various indoor localization systems derived from the various mechanisms. We also discuss the remaining issues and the future work.