Effect of Construction Materials on Indoor Positioning System using Bluetooth Low Energy

Indoor positioning system (IPS) has become increasingly important due to its wide applications in indoor navigation, location-based services (LBS), and disaster relief / recovery. Among the technology candidates, Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) provides low cost and low power consumption. This paper studies the effect of construction materials on the localisation accuracy of an IPS based on trilateration using received signal strength indicators (RSSI) from BLE beacon nodes. Through experiments, we found that plasterboard walls and glass walls provide better localisation accuracy as compared to wooden walls. Furthermore, knowledge about the room-level location of BLE beacon nodes can help improve the localisation accuracy.