An innovative Indoor positioning location system is being designed by Nokia (Research). Via way of the way cool Legends promotion, I was notified of some cool research being conducted by the Nokia Research arm - indoor positioning. 

Nokia Legends and indoor positioning - I'm missing!

The system is being tested in some 40 buildings and airports enabling users to locate the shortest distance between 2 points inside the building. Imagine having help locating an airport gate or a shop within a mall…

A demo of the app shows how a person within a building finds her way around by seeing her position in relation to the floor plan. Position is calculated indoors via WLAN. A person with a known location can then sahre their position with others over the server, enabling others to see where they are on a map. Building on this technology, location-aware apps can then be built on top of this positional information, perhaps to invoke triggered messages or ?? Imagine walkign through an airport and as you approach a gate or security check point information is shared with you, perhaps a reminder to remove your laptop from the bag, or specific directions or instructions are provided… the possibilities are endless.

From Nokia Research… How does this work?

The mobile uses the buildings’ WLAN infrastructure to triangulate your position and then indicates where you are on a building map. Nokia prototypes today can show your location - building section and floor level. They allow you to browse the building, find points of interest and you can even share your position with the people you choose, when you want. Today Nokia has Indoor Positioning trials ongoing within 40 buildings worldwide.

In order to enable indoor positioning in buildings, the indoor positioning solution requires a list of available WLAN access points and their approximate location in the building. Based on this list, which often already exist due to network planning, the indoor position is calculated. Nokia is working on and testing algorithms capable of finding your indoor position to within a few meters.

This is exciting stuff! See more