Project description
FINDR is an indoor positioning system based on FM radio. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first experimental study of FM performance for indoor localisation. The system is built upon commercially available short-range FM transmitters. Despite the low cost and off-the-shelf components, the performance of the FM positioning is comparable to that of Wi-Fi. From our experiments, the median accuracy of the system is around 1.3 m and in 95% of cases the error is below 4.5 m.
Comparison of FM and Wi-Fi
- Cost: An FM transmitter is 3 to 10 times cheaper than a Wi-Fi access point.
- Privacy: FM receiver is a zero-emission device (cannot be traced without user's consent).
- Availability: FM transmitters and receivers are easily available from consumer electronics shops.
- Power: FM receiver is by an order of magnitude more power-efficient than Wi-Fi.
(FM receiver: ~15 mW, Wi-Fi module: ~300 mW in listening mode).
For details and updates, please see my Ph.D. thesis and publications.