Researchers develop indoor GPS app

Upi.com reports.

Developed by a company called IndoorAtlas, which was spun out of the University of Oulu, in Finland, the app takes advantage of the digital compasses found in modern smartphones.

Such compasses don't normally function inside buildings as metallic structural elements disturb the Earth's magnetic field, making it impossible to reliably find north.

The IndoorAtlas turns that problem to its advantage, developer Janne Haverinen said, by using these disturbances to create a unique map within each building.

Arctic Startup says the university team discovered that steel masses inside buildings twist the Earth's magnetic field such that every spot produces a unique pattern.

“Each building, floor and corridor creates a distinct magnetic field disturbance that can be measured to identify a location and generate a map,” explains Haverinen, head of the project.

Haverinen said both what they know about magnetic fields and what they saw in the smartphone marketplace combined to drive their product development, Phys Org notes.

The technology is described as a software-only location system that requires nothing more than a smartphone with built-in sensors. No radio access points or other external hardware infrastructures are necessary.