Distance estimation via bluetooth

Since the development of the Global Positioning System (GPS), positioning technologies play a big role in everyday life. While being extremely useful in outdoor areas, for example for navigating to certain addresses, the satellite-based technology has limited use when locating objects or people inside of buildings. However, especially big companies can profit from locating the position of standing or moving objects inside, economically but also to secure the safety of their employees during a global pandemic , which is why indoor-positioning is no new term for many organizations.

Even though, nowadays there are many ways of locating objects inside of buildings, one technology in particular has pushed through:

Distance estimation via Bluetooth

Next to many different approaches, distance measurement via Bluetooth® Low Energy portrays the current standard solution of indoor positioning. This technology is also very well researched at Fraunhofer IIS and portrays a key knowledge. Bluetooth® Low Energy allows determining the distance between two end devices, especially smartphones, on the outside of buildings as well as the inside.

Especially during the development of a digital tool, allowing automatic contact tracing and therefore the containment of the global coronavirus pandemic, developers focused on the standard solution of indoor localization. This technology makes measuring the distance and duration of an encounter of two smartphone users possible. With the help of a social distancing application, users can be notified when they have been in contact with an infected person.