A Study on Navigation System Using BLE Beacon for Sightseeing

We mention the outline of a trial of tourist navigation system using Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacon for sightseeing in Nikko to provide information about attractive cultures and comparison between for pedestrian and car/bike. These beacons are installed on signboards on the road and shops. We first explain the background of this research and related works. Then we describe the outline of our application to provide the information and knowledge of culture and history while walking the approach to the Tosyogu-shrine. We discuss how to layout the beacons to realize the sightseeing support navigation system for the visitors in Nikko. We mention that BLE beacon in outdoor worked well and if visitors are walking, they can find almost all beacons. The central theme of this paper is how BLE beacons work for travelers on a car or a bike in Nikko. Unfortunately, there are little researches to use BLE beacons for high-speed objects. To analyze this problem, we performed a trial to get information from a BLE beacon in a running vehicle. We founded that a smartphone received information from almost all BLE beacons by the receivers on a car or a bike. However, the order of the beacons is not in order as we expected and that caused problems if the coverage area of a beacon is overlapped. At last, we propose a simple formula to estimate the appropriate layout of beacons when we design the BLE beacon network for sightseeing by using a car or a bike.