GPS, which was meant for military applications during its time of inception, eventually has become indispensable part of day to day life.
Google Maps even has capabilities to help you navigate inside a building. Thus, whether you have to navigate around a city or a mall, this beautiful technology always comes handy.
Many a time, however, due to bad signals GPS doesn’t work inside a building. Sometimes materials used in building construction affect coverage. Hence, Indoor Positioning System (IPS) is used to solve the issue.
IPS helps locate a person inside a huge building for which it uses a technique called trilateration. It utilizes wireless transmitters such as RF beacons, Wi-Fi or Bluetooth transmitter for signals connectivity inside a building.
For indoor navigations, no doubt, IPS is way better than GPS. But unlike GPS, one needs network connection for IPS to operate. Thus, if there is no internet connectivity, it’s a useless asset. In places like basements, subways, railway station finding no or hell weak internet connectivity is no new thing.
This no-network-connectivity-no-IPS-functioning is not going to be a problem anymore, however. A recent patent application by Intel discloses a method that makes IPS function even when network connectivity is weak or isn’t there.
The patent proposes downloading indoor maps of a building prior to a visit. It’s same function that we have in our Google Maps. You can then easily navigate inside a building without internet connectivity.
And as soon you go online, your navigation history gets saves on server and the offline data gets removed from your device automatically. So if you visit a shopping mall and navigate using IPS, later in the night you can see your shopping spree.
Do you know? : Google will sooner implement IPS tech to its Maps for accurate inside navigation