fairfolio
Saved Projects

Indoor Navigation Using Magnetic Fields

CSEF · 2016 Electronics & Electromagnetics Honorable_mention Award

Sophie Q. Carter · Westridge School, Pasadena, Los Angeles County

Overview

Objectives/Goals The goal of my project is to be able to locate a person indoors using a magnetic map created by data collected on a cell phone. Methods/Materials I used a Motorola Droid cell phone equipped with magnetometer, gyroscope, accelerometer, and GPS. I used the AndroSensor app to record sensor data from the phone. I also used the computer program Matlab to create my magnetic maps. I collected magnetometer data in nine aisles at Ralphs. I took three runs down each aisle, two facing South and one facing North. I interpolated the magnetometer data and created magnetic maps of each aisle. Then I had an assistant collect data in four of the nine aisles. I compared the four mystery aisles to my magnetic maps and could determine which aisle the mystery data was collected from. I used Matlab to write a computer algorithm that could match the mystery data to the correct aisle by reading it's mean squared error(MSE). The lowest MSE would be the corresponding match for the mystery data. Results The magnetic field throughout the aisle varied from about ten to fifteen micro Teslas and these variations could be detected by the cell phone. The data could be used to create accurate magnetic maps. The Matlab program matched the mystery runs correctly to their corresponding aisle. Overall, the experiment was successful. Conclusions/Discussion Buildings have magnetic signatures that are unique and reproducible from one location to the next. I created an algorithm that correctly identified which aisle of a grocery store I was walking through using my cell phone. My experiment has many future applications and can eventually be used as an indoor navigation system.

Summary statement

I demonstrated the possibility of indoor navigation using a cell phone to measure magnetic fields in buildings.

Help received

Dr. Carter advised me in the project by showing me how to use Matlab.

Awards (1)

  • Honorable Mention

Competition history

  • CSEF 2016 Electronics & Electromagnetics · Entry J0906

Resources

Related projects

Closest projects by meaning, across every fair and year in the corpus.

Browse more like this

Source: California Science & Engineering Fair public projects

Save projects to your library

Sign in with Google to keep track of projects you find interesting, organized into folders. An account also raises your daily allowance for “Has this been done?”, and lets you create a key for the MCP server with a much higher limit than anonymous use. Browsing stays public.

Continue with Google