London, June 16: Do you always find it difficult to make your way to the right departure gate at the airport? Well, it will soon get a lot easier, thanks to a GPS-like navigating system for cellular phones that works even inside buildings and closed spaces.
Visitors to the Kamppi shopping centre in Helsinki, Finland, are testing a new indoor positioning system, which is quite similar to GPS.
GPS fails to work in buildings because the satellite signals it uses cannot get through walls.
But with the new system, developed by Nokia, a cellphone can use nearby Wi-Fi transmitters instead of satellites.
It triangulates their signals to calculate its position, which it then displays on a map, reports New Scientist magazine.
While this is not the first indoor system, others have mostly been for specialist uses, such as helping firefighters find colleagues in smoke-filled buildings.
The Nokia system will work with existing infrastructure and handsets, but there’s one thing it will need—access to maps of the inside of buildings.
Although it may not be possible to have maps of private homes, many public sites like sports centres and universities already make maps available.
Project leader Christian Prehofer says if the Kamppi test turns out to be a success, the system could be rolled out much more widely.
Thus, the system might help people find their departure gate at airports, meet friends in a museum, or locate goods in a superstore.
Bureau Report
First Published: Tuesday, June 16, 2009, 10:56