Low-Cost Wayfinder Using Bluetooth Angle-of-Arrival

Date & Time

Wednesday, March 20, 2024 - 9:20 AM PDT  

Location

Platinum 1  

Description

This project created a fully functional location-tag-based point-to-point wayfinder system to help the visually impaired navigate large public facilities like airports and shopping centers. This wayfinder uses the Angle of Arrival (AoA) feature from the Bluetooth 5.1 spec but deviates from the intended setup for AoA in traditional Indoor Positioning Systems (IPS). The simplified solution introduced in this project only uses one antenna array on the user device, a low-cost alternative to the expensive full-premise mesh network used in IPS.

This wayfinder successfully detected the direction and distance of a target marked by a low-cost Bluetooth antenna. The direction-sensing capability calculates the angle from the phase difference measured by two adjacent antennas on the user’s antenna array following the newly introduced AoA concept. The target distance estimation is derived from the traditional Bluetooth Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI). The wayfinder demonstrated directional angle accuracy of less than 10 degrees within the 15-meter range. The Python program written for this project shows the user an intuitive radar-like display. As a future improvement, the 15-meter range can be extended to over 84 meters by amplifying the 3mW transmission power to 100mW, and a voice notification system can be built for more serious visually impaired users.

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Audience

• Higher Education
• Information & Communications Technology
• Disability Specific
• Research & Development
• Transportation

Audience Level

Intermediate  

Session Summary (Abstract)

As a low-cost alternative to expensive mesh-based Indoor Positioning Systems, a location-tag-based point-to-point wayfinder using Bluetooth Angle of Arrival (AoA) direction sensing was created to help visually impaired people navigate indoor spaces.  

Primary Topic

Emerging Technologies  

Secondary Topics

• Blind/Low Vision
• Engineering
• Mobile Technology
• Research

 

Session Type

Journal Track  

Presenter

• Brandon Cai
  

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