Indoor localization based on passive electric field sensing

The ability to perform accurate indoor positioning opens a wide range of opportunities, including smart home applications and location-based services. Smart floors are a well-established technology to enable marker-free indoor localization within an instrumented environment. Typically, they are based on pressure sensors or varieties of capacitive sensing. These systems, however, are often hard to deploy as mechanical or electrical features are required below the surface. They might also have a limited range or not be compatible with different floor materials. In this paper, we present a novel indoor positioning system using an uncommon form of passive electric field sensing, which detects the change in body electric potential during movement. It is easy to install by deploying a grid of passive wires underneath any non-conductive floor surface. The proposed architecture achieves a high position accuracy and an excellent spatial resolution. In our evaluation, we measure a mean positioning error of only 12.7 cm. The proposed system also combines the advantages of very low power consumption, easy installation, easy maintenance, and the preservation of privacy.