Mag-Barcode: Magnet Barcode Scanning for Indoor Pedestrian Tracking

In typical scenarios for indoor localization and tracking, it is essential to accurately track the pedestrians when they are crossing the connections of different spaces. In this paper, we propose a magnet barcode scanning-based solution for indoor pedestrian tracking. We assemble multiple magnet bars into magnet arrays as a unique magnet barcode, and deploy different magnet barcodes at different connections to label them. We embed an inertial measurement unit (IMU) into the pedestrian`s shoes. When the pedestrian crosses these connections, the magnetometer from the IMU scans the magnet barcode and recognize its corresponding ID. In this way, indoor pedestrian tracking can be regarded as a process of continuously scanning different magnet barcodes. By performing correlation analysis on these barcodes, the trace of pedestrian can be effectively depicted in the indoor map. To build a unique magnet barcode based on the magnet bar arrays, we provide an optimized structure for building the magnet barcode. To tackle the diversities of the pedestrian's gait traces in identifying the magnet barcode, we provide a generalized model based on the space axis for magnet barcode identification. As far as we know, this is the first work to use the magnet bar array to construct the magnet barcode for indoor pedestrian tracking. The real experiment results show that our system can achieve an average accuracy of 88.9% in identifying the magnet barcodes and an average accuracy of 93.1 % for indoor pedestrian tracking.