Precise 3D Indoor Localization and Trajectory Optimization Based on Sparse Wi-Fi FTM Anchors and Built-In Sensors

Indoor location-based services have become more and more important due to their potential applications in a wide range of personalized services in recent years. The accuracy of smartphone based 3D indoor localization is subjected to the poor performance of low-cost sensors and limited coverage of location sources. In order to solve these problems, this paper proposes a precise 3D indoor localization and trajectory optimization framework that uses the combination of sparse Wi-Fi Fine Time Measurement (FTM) anchors and built-in sensors (3D-LOWS). The inertial navigation system (INS) mechanization, multi-level constraints and observed values are integrated by the adaptive unscented Kalman filter to eliminate effects of cumulative error, indoor magnetic interference, and diversity of handheld modes. The Wi-Fi based ranging and landmark detection information is used to provide an accurate absolute reference to the built-in sensors based method. In addition, this paper proposes and evaluates two different trajectory optimization algorithms and compares the improved localization performance. The comprehensive experiments indicate that the proposed 3D-LOWS is proved to achieve accurate and stable 3D indoor positioning and trajectory optimization performance under complex indoor environments using sparse wireless stations.