Performance Evaluation of iBeacon Deployment for Location-Based Services in Physical Learning Spaces

Abstract

Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) is a wireless network technology used for transmitting data over short distances. BLE maintains a data transmission range comparable to the regular Bluetooth transmission, but consumes less energy and cost. iBeacon technology refers to BLE mobile devices, which allow mobile applications to receive signals from iBeacons in both indoor and outdoor environments. It is commonly used nowadays for positioning, location services, navigation and marketing, for the sustainable development of smart cities. The applications, however, can be further enhanced for use in many disciplines, such as education, health sector, and exhibitions for disseminating information. This study performed a set of robustness and performance tests on BLE-based iBeacons in the teaching and learning environments to evaluate the performance of iBeacon signals for positioning. During robustness testing, positioning accuracy, signal availability and stability were assessed under different environmental conditions, and the findings suggested pedestrian traffic blocking the line of sight between iBeacon and receiver, causing the most signal attenuations and variation in RSSI. In performance testing, a series of tests was conducted to evaluate the deployment of the iBeacons for positioning; leading to recommendations of iBeacon deployment location, density, transmission interval, fingerprint space interval and collection time in physical learning spaces for sustainable eLearning environments.

A stand-alone proximity-based gaming wearable for remote physical activity monitoring

“…However, research has found that the greatest signal attenuation and variation was caused by pedestrian traffic blocking the line of sight between transmitter and receiver, which is something to consider when placing the Bluetooth beacons for the treasure hunt (Kwok et al, 2020). High temperature and strong winds also caused minor discrepancies to the signals, whereas trees and nearby vehicle traffic did not have any negative effects on the signals (Kwok et al, 2020). This highlights the importance of the placement of the BLE beacons for the treasure hunt locations.…”

Reliable Wi-Fi Indoor Localization in Case of AP Loss by Using Integrated Model Based on Signal Anomaly Detector and Signal Distance Corrector

“…When the signal abnormality detector determines that there is AP loss, the proposed algorithm only considers the signal space distortion of trusted APs, while it does not consider the signal space distortion of untrusted APs, which greatly reduce the matching error caused by signal loss. erefore, when the signal abnormality detector determines that there is AP loss, the corrected Euclidean distance can be calculated according to formula (7), while when the signal abnormality detector determines that there is no AP loss, Euclidean distance is still calculated according to formula (8). Suppose that the new Euclidean distance is defined as D, and the fingerprint matching criterion can be expressed as formula ( 9):…”

“…At present, varieties of technologies are continuously implemented in indoor positioning fields, including Ultrasonic Positioning [4,5], Geomagnetic Positioning [6], Bluetooth Positioning [7,8], UWB Positioning [9], and Wi-Fi Positioning [10,11]. Among these technologies, Wi-Fi Positioning is the most prominent, as it has advantages in terms of vast communication range, low cost, convenient deployment, etc.…”

Hybrid-AI-Based iBeacon Indoor Positioning Cybersecurity: Attacks and Defenses

“…For example, Beacon can be found in many camera lenses [ 3 ], LED lighting [ 4 ], PoS devices [ 5 ], and digital billboards [ 6 ]; meanwhile, the popularity of smartphones, network devices, and location-based applications [ 7 ], as well as the low accuracy of GPS systems in indoor environments, have contributed to the expansion of the global indoor positioning market. The potential applications include locating children [ 8 ], the elderly [ 9 ], or pets [ 10 ] who have been lost; shopping mall navigation [ 11 ]; entry, exit, and crowd flow management at large venues (e.g., supermarkets or department stores) [ 12 ]; and vehicle management and identification [ 13 ]. The higher expansion of iBeacon and BLE Beacon applications often leads to higher risks associated with these applications.…”