The Beacon installation guide is here to help you with the first and most important step of creating a new map using Navigine. It will provide you with detailed instructions on how to properly place your beacons and answer any questions you may have.
Keep in mind, these guidelines apply to all common locations. If you have specific issues or problems, it's best to contact their support team.
Once you have finished setting up your beacons and preparing your map, you can move on to recording logs recording procedure and evaluating the accuracy of the positioning.
Technological fact: common WiFi /Beacon positioning services are based on RSSI measurements, that just allow to estimate distances, not direction.
In order to build accurate positioning services, we must pay attention to the placement of the beacons.
First, we need to define the area where we need navigation. For example, we may need to navigate to a specific room, but not inside it. Or we may need to understand our position inside specific rooms, corridors, stairways, etc. To achieve this, we should evenly distribute beacons over the area of interest and draw the expected location of the beacons on a map.
The figure below shows the example of beacon placement over the location.
Because of the way signals propagate, the calculated positions tend to be inside the "convex hull" of all visible transmitters at the moment. This means that the user's position will likely be projected into the "green region", because there are no signals coming from outside the beacons' placement. To overcome this limitation, we suggest following a specific beacon placement algorithm to achieve better location coverage and more stable and accurate positioning.
This text describes the steps to add transmitters for navigation in a specific location.
The placement plan example is shown in Figure 1. We intend to place the beacon in the chamber on the bottom side of the map because it is expected to appear in the navigation. The entrance to further rooms without beacons will be prohibited.
Note:
- Rooms without beacons cannot be entered from the corridor
- Stable positioning is not possible inside the room if no beacons are visible
- Dead reckoning can be used to enter and leave the room, but stable positioning is only possible within the convex hull of beacon positions.
When creating a map for navigation, barriers are important objects to consider. These are objects that block movement, such as walls or tables. We draw these static objects inside the location area as barriers to prevent navigation from going through them.
It's also important to draw the outer edge of the map as a barrier, with a width of 5-10 meters, to fully cover the outer border of the image.
If there are rooms where navigation is not intended (because there are no visible beacons), these rooms should be removed from the navigation area and covered with barriers. This is because outside of the navigation area, there is no information available, so localization cannot be performed accurately.
By adding barriers in areas without beacons and where navigation is not intended, we can ensure that navigation avoids these areas and only focuses on the areas that are important for navigation.
When it comes to using beacons, you have two options depending on the range you want them to cover: a specific area (like a room or staircase), or as much area as possible.
The coverage of the beacon depends on how it is installed (on the wall or ceiling, in a room or corridor, facing the corridor or facing the room).
To get the best results, use a combination of these installation types based on your needs:
The ideal distance between beacons is 7-20m, depending on the area size and layout. In corridors, beacons should be 7-10m apart. In large open spaces, it's best to place beacons on the ceiling or use other types of positioning devices.
By following these guidelines, you can achieve the best coverage for your location and ensure accurate navigation.
The optimal placement of beacons for different room shapes is shown in Figure 5.
Two illustrations to demonstrate beacon placement methods.
FAQ:
Q1: The point moves through walls and enters rooms unexpectedly
A: To prevent the point from jumping into rooms, you can increase the thickness of nearby walls up to 0.5-1 meter. If the room is not important for navigation, you can also cover it completely with a barrier.
Q2: The point is moving through walls
A: This is a normal behavior of the app as it provides a solution based on measurements. Sometimes, the solution may appear in a barrier due to smoothing. You can try to avoid barriers as much as possible based on your preference. The app will project the user position to the closest allowed area. To find the most suitable settings, we recommend recording logs of your location and seeking technical support.
Q3: Huge mean position error
A: To resolve the issue, you can check the following:
Q4: The point is shown on another part of the map
A: There could be several possible reasons for this, including:
Q5: The position is shifted to the center of the map
A: This could be due to:
Q6: The position never reaches the outer wall and is shifted to the closest beacon
A: This is likely due to incorrect beacon placement. Placing beacons on the outer walls of the map should help resolve this issue. Check the beacon placement and try to install them to cover the largest possible area.