Ad-Hoc In-Building Tracking System

SRI International Engineering, 2007-08

Liaison(s): Tony Hawkins ’01, Gary Okerson ’95, John Shockley, Jonathan Solnit
Advisor(s): Joseph King
Students(s): Matthew Weiner (TL), Jeff Jones (F-TL), Eric Burkhart, Nitin Savant, Eric Young (F)

GPS-based tracking has become commonplace, but it is of little value in areas where the GPS signals are not sufficiently reliable to get an accurate position, such as inside buildings. To overcome this shortfall, the team has created a dead reckoning tracking system that can locate an individual indoors without any previous knowledge of the building or preexisting infrastructure. The system uses ultrasonic ranging to find the distance and direction of each of the user’s footsteps.