Results of IMES (Indoor Messaging System) Implementation for Seamless Indoor Navigation and Social Infrastructure Platform

D. Manandhar, S. Kawaguchi, H. Torimoto

Abstract:	IMES is an innovative technology for seamless positioning that uses GPS chipset receiver. Any device that has a GPS chipset in the receiver can use IMES for seamless positioning. The use of mobile phones in the past four years has been doubled and currently about five billion mobile phones are in use globally. This trend will continue and growth rate will even increase due to the requirement of “E911” and “SAR” services. In order to provide such services GPS/GNSS are used in mobile phones. Various applications have been developed due to the availability of GPS/GNSS devices. However, in indoor and deep indoor locations, the position outputs from mobile phone devices are not satisfactory for many applications and services. In order to solve the problems of indoor navigation various technologies like Pseudolite, A-GPS and WiFi exist with their own limitations. IMES has been developed to solve the problems of indoor positioning for seamless position with a single unit of transmitter device to provide 3D position. IMES provides 3D position in indoor and deep indoor locations with a single unit of transmitter device. Due to this feature, IMES can be deployed for social infrastructure platforms like search and rescue in the case of emergency and disasters, social networking services and location based applications. Any application that uses location information needs position data. IMES provides position data with an accuracy of about 10m with floor information of a building and it does not need any communication link to compute position data. IMES is designed in such a way that the same GNSS receiver can process both GNSS and IMES signals leading to the seamless navigation between outdoor and indoor environment. The message type and contents are variable and can be changed as per the application requirements. We have conducted pilot projects at indoor shopping mall at Shin Toyota Station and underground shopping mall at Kobe Station. This paper discusses IMES concept, signal properties, installation management system and findings of the pilot projects. The paper also includes findings from the pilot project conducted at a shopping mall at Shin Maru Building in Tokyo.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 23rd International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS 2010) September 21 - 24, 2010 Oregon Convention Center, Portland, Oregon Portland, OR
Pages:	1184 - 1191
Cite this article:	Manandhar, D., Kawaguchi, S., Torimoto, H., "Results of IMES (Indoor Messaging System) Implementation for Seamless Indoor Navigation and Social Infrastructure Platform," Proceedings of the 23rd International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS 2010), Portland, OR, September 2010, pp. 1184-1191.
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