Data reconciliation of indoor positioning data: Improve position data accuracy in warehouse environment

Abstract

This article focuses on improving indoor positioning data through data reconciliation. Indoor positioning systems are increasingly used for resource tracking to monitor manufacturing and warehouse processes. However, measurement errors due to noise can negatively impact system performance. Redundant measurement involves the use of multiple sensor tags that provide position data on the same resource, to identify errors in the physical environment. If we have measurement data from the entire physical environment, a map-based average measurement error can be determined by specifying the points in the examined area where measurement data should be compensated and to what extent. This compensation is achieved through data reconciliation, which improves real-time position data by considering the measurement error in the actual position as an element of the variance-covariance matrix. A case study in a warehouse environment is presented to demonstrate how discrepancies in position data from two sensor tags on forklifts can be used to identify layout-based errors. The algorithm is generally capable of handling the multi-sensor problem in the case of indoor positioning systems. The key points are as follows: • The layout-based error detection is determined with the indoor positioning system measurement error. • This article shows how redundant measurements and data reconciliation can improve the accuracy of such systems. • Improving the accuracy of position data with the layout-based error map using a data reconciliation algorithm.

Keywords

• Data reconciliation