Designing and Implementing a RFID-based Indoor Guidance System

Most people are not familiar with the indoor environment because most interior spaces are similar, and as such do not arouse the interest of most visitors. Although the GPS combined with the GIS has been broadly applied to many navigation applications, it might be still insufficient in an indoor environment where GPS signals are often severely obstructed. To meet the indoor requirements, the technique of RFID (Radio Frequency IDentification) was utilized to play an important locating role in the implementation of an indoor guidance system. The RFID tags, containing 1 KB capacity divided by 64 blocks, were adopted to accommodate the spatial-related information for working with the shortest routing for the system. By selecting the start and end points in the operation, the guidance system can suggest a direct, shortest distance, path. The locations of the passing points were identified and obtained by retrieving the spatial-related data from the tags next to the moving RFID reader. The guidance messages, including suggested path, modified path and moving directions, can be immediately presented to the users and arrive at their destination via the system’s graphic and voice interfaces. This guidance system has been comprehensively tested for its operation functions and was evaluated by a group of users, indicating that the average time for way finding in an indoor guidance trial can be efficiently reduced by 50%. This prototype for an indoor guidance system is expected to be capable of working on a portable device, such as a PDA or mobile phone, thereby extending its practical application.