Indoor Intelligent Fingerprint-Based Localization: Principles, Approaches and Challenges

With the rapid development of Internet of Things (IoT) technology, location-based services have been widely applied in the construction of smart cities. Satellite-based location services have been utilized in outdoor environments, but they are not suitable for indoor technology due to the absence of global positioning system (GPS) signal. Therefore, many indoor localization technologies and systems have emerged by utilizing many other signals. In particular, fingerprinting localization has recently garnered attention because its promising performance. In this work, we aim to study recent indoor localization technologies and systems based on various fingerprints, which use machine learning and intelligent algorithms. We also present the architecture of intelligent localization. The development of indoor localization technology should have the ability of self-adaptation and self-learning in the future. And the architecture shows how to make localization become more “smart” by advanced techniques. The state-of-the-art localization systems’ working principles are summarized and compared in terms of their localization accuracy, latency, energy consumption, complexity, and robustness. We also discuss the challenges of existing indoor localization technologies, potential solutions to these challenges, and possible improvement measures.