FR3079307A1 - METHOD OF GEOLOCATION IN AN IPS BUILDING AND DEVICE USING THE SAME - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention relates to a method of geolocation in a so-called IPS building according to the acronym "Indoor Positioning System" based on the measurement of the Earth's magnetic field from a device comprising at least one processor, a memory including a program computer, screen, accelerometer, gyroscope, magnetometer and wireless communication means, said method comprising at least one step of acquiring information relating to the measurement of the magnetic field vector between two points A and B determined from the magnetometer, said magnetic field vector representing the magnitude and orientation of the Earth's magnetic field affected by the building structure between said points A and B; said method is remarkable in that it comprises at least the following steps of: - acquisition of at least one datum relating to the distance traveled between the two points A and B and / or the distance separating the device to a second device electronic; and - generating a building map from the acquired magnetic field vectors and the data or data relating to the distance traveled between the two points A and B and / or the distance separating the device to a second electronic device. Another object of the invention relates to a device for implementing said method.

Description

© METHOD OF GEOLOCATION IN A BUILDING SAID IPS AND DEVICE IMPLEMENTING SAID METHOD.

FR 3 079 307 - A1 (© The present invention relates to a geolocation process in a building called IPS according to the acronym "Indoor Positioning System" based on the measurement of the Earth's magnetic field from a device comprising at least one processor , a memory including a computer program, a screen, an accelerometer, a gyroscope, a magnetometer and wireless communication means, said method comprising at least one step of acquiring information relating to the measurement of the magnetic field vector between two points A and B determined from the magnetometer, said magnetic field vector representing the magnitude and orientation of the earth's magnetic field affected by the structure of the building between said points A and B; said method is remarkable in that it includes at least the following steps of:

- Acquisition of at least one piece of data relating to the distance traveled between the two points A and B and / or to the distance separating the device from a second electronic device; and

- generation of a cartography of the building from the acquired magnetic field vectors and the datum (s) relating to the distance traveled between the two points A and B and / or to the distance separating the device to a second electronic device.

Another object of the invention relates to a device for implementing said method.

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Geolocation method in a building called IPS and device implementing said method

Technical area

The present invention relates to a geolocation method inside a building, commonly called IPS according to the English acronym "Indoor Positioning System" and a device implementing said method.

State of the art

In the field of geolocation, it has been well known for many years to use geo-positioning systems by satellite commonly known as GPS according to the acronym “Global Positioning System” which operates on the exploitation of radio signals from a constellation of dedicated satellites. However, GPS location systems have the disadvantage of not working inside buildings. Indeed, the structure of the buildings prevents the good reception of radio waves.

Thus, we have already imagined geolocation systems for the interior of buildings in order to compensate for the shortcomings of GPS systems. This is particularly the case for documents WO2014 / 020547, US2013 / 0281111 and WO2013 / 008169 for example.

WO2014 / 020547 describes methods, assemblies and devices useful for identifying the position and / or movement of a mobile device in a specified area and for facilitating mapping of a specified area. More particularly, this document describes a method for determining at least the location and movement of a mobile device in a specified area, comprising: from an imaging element forming part of a mobile device, at a rate imaging, capture at least two images of part of a specified area at different times; in each of said at least two captured images, identifying at least two fixed points, located in said part of said specified area, which are located in said at least two captured images; processing said at least two images to identify changes in the relative locations of said at least two fixed points identified in said at least two images; from an orientation measuring element forming part of said mobile device, determining a three-dimensional orientation of said mobile device; using data received from at least one of a speed detection element of said mobile device and a direction detection element of said mobile device, determining a motion vector for said mobile device; and based on said identified modifications of the relative locations of said at least two points identified in said at least two images, said motion vector, and said orientation of said mobile device, calculating at least one of: a location of said mobile device in said device specified area, and a distance and direction traveled by said mobile device.

This type of process requires a very large computing power insofar as it is based on image processing so that the precision of this type of process is particularly low.

Document US2013 / 0281111 describes a method, an apparatus and a computer program product which enable wireless position determination. According to an exemplary embodiment, a method consists in generating, in a mobile wireless device, grid nodes representing one or more floor areas in a closed space, based on a map of the closed space ; estimating locations along a motion path of a user of the mobile wireless device crossing the floor area (s), based on motion observations made by a motion sensor in the mobile wireless device and card information; generating a radio map of the floor area (s) by performing radio measurements using the mobile wireless device, at the locations estimated along the motion path, matching the measurements to the grid nodes generated that are closest to the estimated locations; and compiling a footprint data structure of the radio card, comprising observation elements representing the radio measurements at the grid nodes mapped.

In the same way as before, this type of process has the disadvantage of having low precision.

The document describes a method for determining the location of a receiver in a specified area, comprising: from at least one synchronizer, transmitting a synchronization signal at a synchronization rate; at a plurality of sound sources located in a specified area, receiving said synchronization signal; from each of said plurality of sound sources, at a predetermined delay time after receiving said synchronization signal, transmitting a sound signal having a base frequency; at a sound receiver located in said specified area, receiving said synchronization signal and at least two of said sound signals transmitted by said sound sources; calculating the flight time of at least a portion of said received audio signal based on the reception of said received audio signals, the reception of said synchronization signal, and a respective said predetermined delay time; and using said calculated flight time and said respective known locations of said sound sources for which said flight time is calculated, determining the location of said receiver in said defined area.

This type of process has the disadvantage of requiring the installation of a large number of sound sources in all the buildings so that it is financially very expensive and therefore difficult to implement.

In order to improve the accuracy of geolocation inside a building, we have already imagined using variations of the Earth's magnetic field which is altered by the structure of the building. This is particularly the case for document EP2615420.

Document EP2615420 describes an apparatus for generating an internal magnetic field map for a building comprising at least one processor and at least one memory comprising a computer programming code in which the memory and the computer programming code are configured to bring the apparatus acquiring information indicating a magnetic field vector measured in at least one known location inside the building, and generating the internal magnetic field map for at least part of the building on the basis of the acquired information indicating the field vector magnetic and the building level plan. The information is acquired from at least two different measurement devices and is combined to represent the magnetic field vector and an uncertainty measurement of the magnetic field vector.

Although this process improves the accuracy of geolocation inside the building, it is common that in some part of the building the accuracy is not very good due to large uncertainties in magnitude and orientation of the magnetic field vector.

There is therefore a need to provide a geolocation system inside a building with better precision regardless of the position in said building.

Disclosure of invention

One of the aims of the invention is therefore to remedy these drawbacks by proposing a method and a device for geolocation in a building of simple and inexpensive design providing better accuracy in geolocation.

To this end and in accordance with the invention, a geolocation device is proposed in a so-called IPS building according to the acronym "Indoor Positioning System" based on the measurement of the Earth's magnetic field as defined in claim 1. This device comprises at least one processor, a memory including a computer program, a screen, an accelerometer, a gyroscope, a magnetometer and wireless communication means, said computer program being configured, by means of said processor, for trigger said device to acquire information relating to the measurement of the magnetic field vector between two points A and B determined from the magnetometer, said magnetic field vector representing the magnitude and orientation of the earth's magnetic field affected by the structure of the building between said points A and B, characterized in that the computer program is configured for at least oins:

- acquire at least one piece of data relating to the distance traveled between the two points A and B and / or to the distance separating the device from a second electronic device; and

- generate a cartography of the building from the acquired magnetic field vectors and the datum (s) relative to the distance traveled between the two points A and B and / or to the distance separating the device from a second electronic device.

Special features of this device are the subject of claims 2 to 8.

The invention also relates to a geolocation process as defined in to claims 8 and following.

This method is a geolocation method in a building called IPS according to the acronym “Indoor Positioning System” based on the measurement of the Earth's magnetic field from a device comprising at least one processor, a memory including a program of computer, screen, accelerometer, gyroscope, magnetometer and wireless communication means, said method comprising at least one step of acquiring information relating to the measurement of the vector of magnetic field between two determined points A and B from the magnetometer, said magnetic field vector representing the magnitude and orientation of the earth's magnetic field affected by the structure of the building between said points A and B, characterized in that it comprises at least the following steps of:

- acquisition of at least one piece of data relating to the distance traveled between the two points A and B and / or to the distance separating the device from a second electronic device; and

- generation of a cartography of the building from the acquired magnetic field vectors and the datum (s) relating to the distance traveled between the two points A and B and / or to the distance separating the device to a second electronic device.

Embodiment of the invention

The geolocation process in a so-called IPS building according to the English acronym "Indoor Positioning System" according to the invention is based on the measurement of the Earth's magnetic field from a device comprising at least one processor, a memory including a computer program, a screen, an accelerometer, a gyroscope, a magnetometer and wireless communication means, such as a smartphone or a touch pad for example. Said method comprises a step of acquiring information relating to the measurement of the magnetic field vector between two points A and B determined from the magnetometer, said magnetic field vector representing the magnitude and the orientation of the terrestrial magnetic field affected by the structure of the building between said points A and B. Said field vector can be acquired by any method well known to those skilled in the art such as, for example, by the methods described in the following publications:

“Magnetic field feature extraction and selection for indoor location estimation”, Carlos E. Galvan-Tejada, Juan Pablo Garcia-Vazquez and Ramon F. Brena, Sensors 2014, 14, 1100111015, doi: 10.3390 / s 140611001; "Indoor location sensing using geo-magnetism", Jaewoo Chung, Matt Donahoe, Chris Schmandt, Ig-Jae Kim, Pedram Razavai, Micaela Wiseman, MIT Media Labotary; "Lightweight map marching for indoor localization using conditional random fields", Zhuoling Xiao, Hongkai Wen, Andrew Markham, Niki Trigoni, Departaient of Computer Science, University of Oxford, 978-1-4799-3146-0 / 14 / $ 31.00 2014 IEEE; "Magnetic maps for indoor navigation", Brandon Gozick, Kalyan Pathapati, Ram Dantu, and Tomyo Maeshiro, IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INSTRUMENTATION AND MEASUREMENT, VOL. 60, No 12, December 2011; "Magicol: Indoor localization using pervasive magnetic field and opportunistic wifi sensing", Yuanchao Shu, Cheng Bo, Guobin Shen, Chunshui Zhao, Liquin Li and Feng Zhao; "A magnetic field based lightweight indoor positioning System for mobile devices", Qing Huang and Tao Yang; “Characterization of the indoor magnetic field for applications in localization and mapping”, Michael Angermann, Martin Frassl, Marek Doniec, Brian J. Julian and Patrick Robertson, 2012 International conference on indoor positioning and indoor navigation, 13-15 November 2012; “Modeling and interpolation of the ambient magnetic field by Gaussian processes”, Amo Solin, Manon Kok, Niklas Wahlstrom, Thomas B. Schon, Simon Sârkkâ, arXiv: 1509.04634vl (cs.RO) 15 Sep 2015.

Furthermore, the method comprises a step of acquiring at least one piece of data relating to the distance traveled between the two points A and B and / or to the distance separating the device from a second electronic device and a step for generating a mapping of the building from the acquired magnetic field vectors and the data relating to the distance traveled between the two points A and B and / or to the distance separating the device from a second electronic device . Preferably, the step of acquiring data relating to the distance traveled is obtained from measurements of the accelerometer and / or the gyroscope of the device according to a process well known to those skilled in the art.

In order to improve the accuracy of geolocation, the method according to the invention comprises a step of acquiring data relating to the distance separating the device from at least one beacon comprising wireless communication means, the said beacon (s) ( s) being positioned inside the building. Each beacon consists, for example, of a bluetooth beacon called Beacon or in any other equivalent beacon well known to those skilled in the art. Note that the data is transmitted to the device when the latter detects the beacon.

Advantageously, the method according to the invention comprises a step of acquiring information relating to the measurement of the magnetic field vector measured from the magnetometer of at least one second device and of generating said mapping of the building from magnetic field vectors acquired by the first device and field vectors acquired by said at least second device and the datum (s) relating to the distance traveled between the two points A and B and / or to the distance separating the device to a second electronic device. To this end, the method comprises a step of continuously transmitting information relating to the measurement of the magnetic field vector between two determined points from the magnetometer to a remote server, said data being recorded on said server as well as a step of reception of information data relating to the measurement of the magnetic field vector between two points determined from the magnetometer of at least one second device, said data being transmitted from said remote server to which the device is connected.

Incidentally, the method according to the invention comprises a step of receiving and displaying on the mapping at least one item of information transmitted by the remote server to which the device is connected. The said information may consist, for example, of information relating to the opening hours of the building and / or of commercial information.

Another object of the invention relates to a geolocation device in a building called IPS according to the English acronym "Indoor Positioning System" implementing said method. Said geolocation device based on the measurement of the Earth's magnetic field may consist of a smartphone or a touch pad, or any other equivalent device, comprising at least one processor, a memory including a computer program, a screen, an accelerometer, a gyroscope, magnetometer and wireless communication means, said computer program being configured, by means of said processor, to trigger said device to acquire information relating to the measurement of the vector of magnetic field between two points A and B determined at from the magnetometer, said magnetic field vector representing the magnitude and the orientation of the earth's magnetic field affected by the structure of the building between said points A and B. The computer program, which will for example be in the form of a downloadable application, is configured for at least:

- acquire at least one piece of data relating to the distance traveled between the two points A and B and / or to the distance separating the device from a second electronic device; and

- generate a cartography of the building from the acquired magnetic field vectors and the datum (s) relative to the distance traveled between the two points A and B and / or to the distance separating the device from a second electronic device.

Preferably, the computer program is configured to acquire data relating to the distance traveled from the accelerometer and / or gyroscope measurements of the device by means of an algorithm well known to those skilled in the art and recorded. in the device memory.

In addition, the computer program is configured to acquire data relating to the distance separating the device from at least one beacon comprising wireless communication means, the said beacon (s) being positioned at the interior of the building. Said tag may consist of a so-called Beacon bluetooth tag well known to those skilled in the art or in any other equivalent tag.

Advantageously, said computer program is configured to acquire information relating to the measurement of the magnetic field vector measured from the magnetometer of at least one second device, such as a smartphone or a touch pad for example, and generating said building mapping from the magnetic field vectors acquired by the first device and the field vectors acquired by said at least second device and from the data or data relating to the distance traveled between the two points A and B and / or the distance separating the device from a second electronic device. To this end, the computer program is configured to transmit information relating to the measurement of the magnetic field vector between two determined points from the magnetometer to a remote server, said data being recorded on said server, and to receive data information relating to the measurement of the magnetic field vector between two points determined from the magnetometer of at least one second device, said data being transmitted from said remote server.

Incidentally, the computer program is configured to receive and display information on the cartography, such as information relating to the opening hours of the building and / or commercial information (promotion or reduction coupon for example), transmitted by the remote server.

Finally, it is obvious that the examples which have just been given are only specific illustrations and in no way limitative as to the fields of application of the invention.

Claims (16)

1. Geolocation device in a building called IPS according to the acronym "Indoor Positioning System" based on the measurement of the Earth's magnetic field comprising at least one processor, a memory including a computer program, a screen, an accelerometer, a gyroscope, magnetometer and wireless communication means, said computer program being configured, by means of said processor, to trigger said device to acquire information relating to the measurement of the vector of magnetic field between two points A and B determined at from the magnetometer, said magnetic field vector representing the magnitude and orientation of the earth's magnetic field affected by the structure of the building between said points A and B, characterized in that the computer program is configured for at least: - acquire at least one piece of data relating to the distance traveled between the two points A and B and / or to the distance separating the device from a second electronic device; and - generate a cartography of the building from the acquired magnetic field vectors and the datum (s) relative to the distance traveled between the two points A and B and / or to the distance separating the device from a second electronic device. 2. Device according to claim 1 characterized in that the computer program is configured to acquire data relating to the distance traveled from the measurements of the accelerometer and / or the gyroscope of the device. 3. Device according to any one of claims 1 or 2 characterized in that the computer program is configured to acquire data relating to the distance separating the device from at least one beacon comprising wireless communication means, the or said tag (s) being positioned inside the building. 4. Device according to claim 3 characterized in that each tag consists of a bluetooth tag called Beacon. 5. Device according to any one of claims 1 to 4 characterized in that the computer program is configured to acquire information relating to the measurement of the magnetic field vector measured from the magnetometer of at least one second device and generating said building mapping from the magnetic field vectors acquired by the first device and the field vectors acquired by said at least second device and from the data or data relating to the distance traveled between the two points A and B and / or the distance separating the device from a second electronic device. 6. Device according to any one of claims 1 to 5 characterized in that the computer program is configured to transmit the information relating to the measurement of the magnetic field vector between two points determined from the magnetometer to a remote server, said data being recorded on said server. 7. Device according to claims 5 and 6 characterized in that the computer program is configured to receive information data relating to the measurement of the magnetic field vector between two points determined from the magnetometer of at least one second device, said data being transmitted from said remote server. 8. Device according to any one of claims 1 to 7 characterized in that the computer program is configured to receive and display on the map information transmitted by the remote server. 9. Geolocation method in a building called IPS according to the acronym “Indoor Positioning System” based on the measurement of the Earth's magnetic field from a device comprising at least one processor, a memory including a computer program , a screen, an accelerometer, a gyroscope, a magnetometer and wireless communication means, said method comprising at least one step of acquiring information relating to the measurement of the vector of magnetic field between two points A and B determined from of the magnetometer, said magnetic field vector representing the magnitude and orientation of the earth's magnetic field affected by the structure of the building between said points A and B, characterized in that it comprises at least the following steps: - acquisition of at least one piece of data relating to the distance traveled between the two points A and B and / or to the distance separating the device from a second electronic device; and - generation of a cartography of the building from the acquired magnetic field vectors and the datum (s) relating to the distance traveled between the two points A and B and / or to the distance separating the device to a second electronic device. 10. The method of claim 9 characterized in that it comprises a step of acquiring data relating to the distance traveled from the measurements of the accelerometer and / or the gyroscope of the device. 11. Method according to any one of claims 9 or 10 characterized in that it comprises a step of acquiring data relating to the distance separating the device from at least one beacon comprising wireless communication means, the or said tag (s) being positioned inside the building. 12. Method according to claim 11 characterized in that each tag consists of a bluetooth tag called Beacon and in that the data is transmitted to the device when the latter detects the tag. 13. Method according to any one of claims 9 to 12 characterized in that it comprises a step of acquiring information relating to the measurement of the magnetic field vector measured from the magnetometer of at least one second device and of generation of said building mapping from the magnetic field vectors acquired by the first device and from the field vectors acquired by said at least second device and from the datum (s) relating to the distance traveled between the two points A and B and / or the distance separating the device from a second electronic device. 14. Method according to any one of claims 9 to 13 characterized in that it comprises a step of transmitting information relating to the measurement of the magnetic field vector between two points determined from the magnetometer to a remote server, said data being stored on said server. 15. Method according to claims 13 and 14 characterized in that it comprises a step of receiving information data relating to the measurement of the magnetic field vector between two points determined from the magnetometer of at least one second device, said data being transmitted from said remote server to which the device is connected. 16. Method according to any one of claims 9 to 15 characterized in that it comprises a step of receiving and displaying on the map at least one information transmitted by the remote server to which the device is connected.