New Apple Patent Describes Techniques for Generating Maps of Indoor Venues

Apple landed a U.S. patent Tuesday that describes techniques for generating maps of indoor venues, including those of individual floors, to supplement GPS functionality commonly found on smartphones. Though a smartphone can use GPS to determine location, including latitude and longitude, and display that on a “virtual map” on the screen, “maps of indoor space may not be easily available,” said the patent (9,913,100), which names seven Apple inventors and is based on an application filed in September 2014. “Even when the maps are available, the maps may not be up to date due to frequent changes to the indoor space,” such as when a store moves into or out of a mall, said the patent. “Even when the maps are up to date, indoor navigation may be difficult or unavailable due to lack of accurate GPS signals in the indoor space as well as lack of integration between maps of outdoor space and maps of indoor space.” The solution the patent describes is to enlist the help of a “venue data service,” asking owners of individual properties to “upload” information to that service, including the “geometries” of floors. The service also would periodically “survey” property owners to “validate the venue data” and certify that the information is up to date, it said. The service also could generate “fingerprint data” about the venue that “can include expected measurements of the environment variable at various locations of the building,” it said. A smartphone can then use the fingerprint data to determine where within the venue the mobile device and its owner are located “using sensor readings of the environment variable,” it said. Apple representatives didn’t comment Wednesday.