Experiencing and handling the diversity in data density and environmental locality in an indoor positioning service

Diversity in training data density and environment locality is intrinsic in the real-world deployment of indoor localization systems and has a major impact on the performance of existing localization approaches. In this paper, through micro-benchmarks, we find that fingerprint-based approaches are preferable in scenarios where a dense database is available; while model-based approaches are the method of choice in the case of sparse data. It should be noted, however, that practical situations are complex. A single deployment often features both sparse and dense sampled areas. Furthermore, the internal layout affects the propagation of radio signals and exhibits environmental impacts. A certain number of measurement samples may be sufficient for one part of the building, but entirely insufficient for another. Thus, finding the right indoor localization algorithm for a given large-scale deployment is challenging, if not impossible; there is no one-size-fits-all indoor localization approach.