A relative positioning system for co-located mobile devices

If a mobile computing device knows how it is positioned and oriented in relation to other devices nearby, then it can provide enhanced support for multi-device and multi-user interactions. Existing systems that provide position information to mobile computers are reliant on externally deployed infrastructure, such as beacons or sensors in the environment. We introduce the Relate system, which provides fine-grained relative position information to co-located devices on the basis of peer-topeer sensing, thus overcoming dependence on any external infrastructure. The system is realised as a hardware/software plug-in, using ultrasound for peer-to-peer sensing, USB to interface with standard mobile devices, abstraction and inferencing to map sensor data to a spatial model that maintains both quantitative and qualitative relationships. We present a set of services and applications to demonstrate the utility of the system. We report experimental results on the accuracy of the relative positio...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2005
• Where: MOBISYS
• Authors: Mike Hazas, Christian Kray, Hans-Werner Gellersen, Henoc Agbota, Gerd Kortuem, Albert Krohn
• Keywords: Fine-grained Relative Position, Mobile Computing Device, MOBISYS 2005, Standard Mobile Devices, Wireless Networks