A Survey of Bluetooth Indoor Localization

Nowadays, indoor localization has received extensive research interest due to more and more applications' needs for location information to provide a more precise and effective service [1], [2]. There are various wireless techniques and mechanisms that have been proposed; some of them have been studied in depth and come into use, such as Wi-Fi, RFID, and sensor networks. In comparison, the development of Bluetooth location technology is slow and there are not many papers and surveys in this field, although the performance and market value of Bluetooth are increasing steadily. In this paper, we aim to provide a detailed survey of various indoor localization systems with Bluetooth. In contrast with the existing surveys, we categorize the exciting localization techniques that have been proposed in the literature in order to sketch the development of Bluetooth location compared to other technologies. We also evaluate different systems from the perspective of availability, cost, scalability, and accuracy. We also discuss remaining problems and challenges to accurate Bluetooth localization.