1. Copyright 2016 davids@iit.edu
PILoT
Platform for Indoor Location-Based ApplicaTions
RealTime Communications Conference
October 20,2016
Bharat Ramaswamy Nandakumar
Carol Davids
Di Wu
Neil Okhandiar
Tracy Francis
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2. Development Team Developers Alberto Gonzalez
Bharat Ramaswamy-Nandakumar
Di Wu
Neil Okhandiar
Project Mentors/Awesome Human Beings
Carol Davids
Cary Davids
Bruce Nardi

3. Special Thanks
Special thanks to Carol Davids who directed the project and provided invaluable advice.
Special thanks to Joe Cusimano who constructed the NG911 testbed in the IIT RTC Lab.
Special thanks to Eric Hagerson from T-Mobile for suggesting the project, providing the smartphones and funding the project.
Special thanks to Oracle for donating the SBC and Brian Knueppel and Chris Rushton for help with its configuration.

4. Illinois Tech Real-Time Communications Lab
The IIT RTC Lab is a unique venue in which industry and academia connect.
It is an educational facility dedicated to teaching, research and development activities that further the advancement of networked communications.
Lab website -
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5. History
The predecessor for this platform was a project where we used the WiFi infrastructure in IIT’s Mies Campus.
But this solution had a lot drawbacks
We were dependent on the specific implementation of the WiFi Access Points
As a result, the phone was not able to locate itself, and instead we had to route through the IIT infrastructure to gather the necessary data
While we had better accuracy than what was required by the FCC, the WiFi solution struggled to consistently identify the correct floor.

6. Moving in a Different Direction
And we pivot to a system that is:
Infrastructure independent
3 years old or newer smartphones compatible
Capable of providing negligible bleed through floors
Easily retrofitted in older buildings
A clear solution fast to deploy and monitor
The device must be able to identify its own location and must be independent of the system.
The solution should be compatible with phones that are at least 3 years old
There should not be any bleed through over floors and if there is, it should be at a minimum
Retrofitting them to older buildings should be easy
Should be an easy solution to deploy and monitor

7. PILoT
From To
Why?
Bluetooth is universally available in current manufactured mobiles
Bluetooth iBeacons are cheap and easy to deploy
Bluetooth Power consumption is very low
Bluetooth iBeacons are independent
The reason we went with Bluetooth in PILoT is because of
Bluetooth is almost universally available in mobiles manufactured today
Bluetooth Beacons have been used to locate people by companies for advertising purposes
Its cheap to build and deploy
It is independent and very easy to administer and monitor
It consumes very little energy

8. Concept We provide Management system for iBeacon devices
Location based on algorithms developed by us
Open API for device independence
Ready-to-deploy devices
Remote software update and control

9. Concept We provide Simple install
Retrofit buildings easily (infrastructure independent)
Available anywhere were WiFi can be implemented
Indoor Location

10. PILoT Management System
Modules
1. PILoT devices core
2. PILoT Management System
PILoT Management System
PILoT Core Device

11. Copyright 2016 davids@iit.edu
PILoT Device Core
Particle Photon (WiFi)
Bluetooth Module HM-10
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12. PILoT WiFi Core The Device consists of two parts
A WiFi Arduino board called Photon from Particle
A HM-10 Bluetooth Module from HM-Soft
The WiFi is used administration of the device and the Bluetooth Module is for the Bluetooth Beacons
This system was deployed in IIT’s Stuart Building.
It has density of 20 devices per floor.
They provide an accuracy of up to 5 meters.

13. Drawbacks
The device management hardware (WiFi and CPU) consumes an order of magnitude greater current than the Bluetooth device itself
If a device hardware is faulty, or encounters some fatal bug, the only notification is the lack of notifications
The numerous components of the WiFI Core increase the likelihood of the total system failing, and creates non- essential complexity
Expensive to provide a general-purpose CPU and WiFi chip for every bluetooth device

14. Future PILoT MultiPoint Core
Intel Edison
(Master)
Bluetooth Module HM-10 (Slave)

15. Future PILoT MultiPoint Core
The Multi-Point Core is a star network where we have a cluster of HM-10’s managed by a single Master device
Thus, only the Master devices must ensure a stable connection to internet.
Because the slave devices now only consist of Bluetooth devices, their power draw is significantly lowered.
This is also much cheaper than the WiFi Core.

16. Location Server/Database
The other component of the platform is the Location Server and its associated Database.
We will first describe the operation of the Server and then describe the organization of the Database providing as well a user interface to that database.

17. Location Server
The location server includes a webserver that receives a list of all Bluetooth packets detected by the requesting unit.
That unit might be a smartphone application that requires its location.
The packets include the coreid (uuid), major, minor and RSSI (signal strength) associated with the packets.
The server then runs our algorithms with this list as input to pick the Bluetooth device that is closest to the requesting unit.

18. Location Server (continued)
The location server calculates which of the responding BlueTooth devices is closest to the requesting unit.
The server outputs this location of the BT device in a human–readable format.
We are developing algorithms that will calculate the coordinates of the requesting unit instead of providing the location of the nearest BlueTooth device.

19. PILot Database
NOTE: Experiment databases are associated with the r&d phase of the work we are doing to improve the algorithms

20. Admin Tables

21. Experiment Tables

22. GIS

23. EXAMPLES OF USAGE Researcher Administrator
Analyze accuracy of algorithm
Analyze infrastructure of bluetooth devices
Analyze influences between devices
Analyze success rate of experiment
Researcher
Battery status
Locate devices
Check versions
Administrator

24. EXAMPLES OF USAGE Emergency Call dispatcher UI for IIT example
Fire evacuation example
Visually Impaired people

25. http://8fimaa.axshare.com/home.html Click on Admin Dev. Login
Click on Stuart Building
Click on Ground Floor
Choose 199 to show the graph of the voltage

26. Questions ?

27. Thank you!