Outdoor positioning is nothing new; we have been using GPS technology for decades across a wide range of activities, including navigation, asset tracking, surveying, autonomous driving, drones, precision farming, and even games like geocaching. I still remember using the Garmin V, with its built-in navigation feature, on my first trip from Dallas to Chicago back in 2003. Today, I use outdoor positioning for everything, from navigating to my kids' next judo competition, to locating my “too popular” teenager son or finding the Buddhist pagoda in the Ueno Park in Tokyo.
While outdoor GPS technology has revolutionized navigation and location-based activities, indoor positioning faces unique challenges. Unlike outdoor GPS, indoor positioning is neither fully ubiquitous nor standardized. Some technologies offer accurate results, but significant challenges remain in providing consistent, real-time, and full-coverage solutions across various indoor environments. More importantly, these solutions are not yet widely accessible to the public. For me, I still ask my wife to call my phone when I lose it at home.
Here is the dilemma: we spend over 80% of our time indoors, yet we do not have an easy way to track indoor positioning. Imagine if we could position devices indoors as seamlessly as we do outdoors. In this blog, we will explore exciting use cases for indoor positioning and examine a promising solution that bridges the gap between indoor and outdoor tracking.
The obvious use case: Smart Manufacturing
Precise indoor positioning in a smart factory can revolutionize operations. Imagine real-time inventory tracking, ensuring materials and products are always where they should be. Geofencing enhances security by restricting access to sensitive areas and preventing expensive tools from leaving designated workshops. Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) navigate efficiently, optimizing routes and reducing delays.
Worker safety improves as location tracking helps prevent accidents by monitoring proximity to hazardous zones and, in case of an incident, speeds up response time by quickly locating affected personnel. These indoor positioning applications can create a more efficient, safe, and secure environment, boosting productivity and reducing costs.
Indoor positioning for health care
Another sector that stands to benefit significantly from indoor positioning is healthcare. For example, locating medical equipment in a hospital can be a challenge. Equipment is frequently moved between rooms and areas, causing nurses to spend considerable time searching for it. This not only incurs costs due to wasted time but also leads to unnecessary purchases of additional equipment. Moreover, this situation can pose a serious risk, as critical medical devices may be unavailable during emergencies. Indoor positioning can resolve this by helping nurses and healthcare professionals quickly and efficiently locate medical equipment.
Indoor positioning combined with AI can greatly enhance patient and healthcare staff management in hospitals. By tracking the location of patients and staff, AI can help determine the most efficient routes for navigating patients from one area to another. Over time, AI/ML algorithms can analyze historical indoor location data to identify optimal routes for patient flow, which can lead to improvements in the hospital’s layout and the placement of rooms and key areas. This could result in a more efficient hospital design that better supports patient care and staff workflow.
Indoor positioning and the smart building
This is my favorite use case, the application of indoor positioning for Smart Buildings. Imagine the incredible possibilities when you know the exact location of people within a Smart Building. From a sustainability perspective, it allows for optimized energy consumption—lights and air conditioning can be adjusted automatically based on the occupants' locations, reducing waste.
In terms of productivity, the buildings' layouts could be reconfigured based on the behavior of teams and individuals. Seating arrangements could be optimized by grouping those who collaborate most frequently. For the user, "smart" elevators could anticipate where people gather and move to those floors before anyone presses a button. Over time, these systems could learn patterns and optimize for rush hours, like early morning and late afternoon.
Indoor positioning also enhances operational efficiency. Package deliveries, IT support, and general maintenance can be streamlined, with services dispatched precisely to where they are needed.
Perhaps the most critical benefit of advanced positioning is safety. In emergencies like evacuations, it is critical to confirm that everyone has left the building. In other scenarios, first responders can be quickly directed to the exact locations where people are, accelerating their response and improving outcomes.
Indoor positioning becomes reality: Introducing Ericsson Indoor Advanced Positioning
The new Ericsson Indoor Positioning feature unlocks a wide range of innovative use cases across various industries. From improving operational efficiency and safety in smart factories, to enhancing equipment tracking and patient care in hospitals, and optimizing energy use and productivity in smart buildings, this technology brings powerful positioning capabilities indoors, transforming how businesses operate
Ericsson’s Indoor Advanced Positioning (IAP) offers an all-in-one solution for indoor tracking. It combines the Ericsson Radio Dot System (RDS), RAN compute, and the Ericsson Network Location (ENL) platform, using the same infrastructure for both communication and precise indoor location services.
This cloud-based solution is secure, cost-efficient, and provides accuracy between 1 to 3 meters, with the potential for sub-meter precision in certain environments; we achieved sub-meter accuracy in our Indoor Positioning proof of concept in Plano, Texas.
Additionally, IAP works with any 5G-enabled device—no extra hardware or custom systems needed, just a cellular connection. The solution also supports three interfaces: MLP (standardized protocol), NgmLc (3GPP), and Camara API, making it easy to integrate with third-party applications.
What makes Ericsson’s solution stand out is its flexibility and simplicity. It can track any 5G device by using the network to calculate its position. With this technology, businesses can easily bring precise indoor positioning into their operations to boost efficiency, improve safety, and support innovation across industries like healthcare, smart buildings, and manufacturing.
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