Infrastructure-Free Floor Localization Through Crowdsourcing

Mobile phone localization plays a key role in the fast-growing location-based applications domain. Most of the existing localization schemes rely on infrastructure support such as GSM, Wi-Fi or GPS. In this paper, we present FTrack, a novel floor localization system to identify the floor level in a multi-floor building on which a mobile user is located. FTrack uses the mobile phone's sensors only without any infrastructure support. It does not require any prior knowledge of the building such as floor height or floor levels. Through crowdsourcing, FTrack builds a mapping table which contains the magnetic field signature of users taking the elevator/escalator or walking on the stairs between any two floors. The table can then be used for mobile users to pinpoint their current floor levels. We conduct both simulation and field studies to demonstrate the efficiency, scalability and robustness of FTrack. Our field trial shows that FTrack achieves an accuracy of over 96% in three different buildings.