Nokia Indoor Location


    Finnish mobile phone manufacturer Nokia is working on a new GPS-free indoor positioning technology using the so-called “white space” - an unused frequency spectrum reserved for a television signal. A consortium of IT and TV companies such as Microsoft, Samsung, BBC is participating in the development of the company.

    One of Nokia’s senior managers, Scott Probasco, demonstrated a prototype device, the Nokia N9, connected to a small box (a high-frequency receiver with a controller capable of detecting free frequencies in a TV signal), at the Cambridge Imperial War Museum, where the company's specialists installed a number of transmitters signal operating at frequencies of "white space". As a result, it turned out that the prototype was working quite successfully - the device could confidently determine the location of Probasko and transmit information on the exhibit that he was currently inspecting to his smartphone. Allegedly, the accuracy of the location was 10 meters.

    Nokia’s managers assess the commercial benefits of using the new technology as the ability to create automatic guides, advertisements through it, increase the efficiency of visitors to shopping centers and other large buildings, since they can quickly find the company or store they are interested in in a huge building where GPS does not work.

    Interestingly, in this case, Nokia intends to implement in its devices a function that telecommunications companies in the United States became interested in about four years ago, intending to use the “white space” to access the Internet. In 2010, the US Federal Communications Commission approved the use of free frequencies of the TV signal, but not a single device available on the market has ever appeared. Nokia also plans to realize the possibility of positioning indoors by 2015.

    [ Source ]

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