Study of Sensors Embedded in Smartphones for Use in Indoor Localization

In recent years, smartphones experienced a fast technological growth, approaching its computational capacity to personal computers. In addition to that, new hardware and sensors are being incorporated into these devices. The smart phone´s embedded sensors are a low cost solution that allows interactions between humans, computers and the environment. Examples include applications designed to identify the user´s location by GPS receiver, games that use accelerometers and/or gyroscope, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth antennas that exchange information between users, microphones that perceive user´s gestural movements, and so on. This paper presents a study of the various smartphones sensors, detailing their operation and identifying their main features, advantages, drawbacks, and potential of use for indoor location. We analyzed smartphones sensitive to sound, Wi-Fi, magnetic field, 3-dimensional linear acceleration and angular velocity. This study presented - as the ideal solution - a fusion of sensors to complement individual skills and to improve the information accuracy regarding the device´s rotation and translation.