{"id":341917,"date":"2017-05-25T18:32:22","date_gmt":"2017-05-25T10:32:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/techcrunch.com\/?p=1495609"},"modified":"2017-05-25T18:32:22","modified_gmt":"2017-05-25T10:32:22","slug":"gatwick-airport-now-has-2000-beacons-for-indoor-navigation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/gatwick-airport-now-has-2000-beacons-for-indoor-navigation\/","title":{"rendered":"Gatwick Airport now has 2,000 beacons for indoor navigation"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Complex indoor environments such as\u00a0airports and shopping malls can be a nightmare to find your way around. And while Google is eyeing smartphones with 3D sensors as one\u00a0potential fix for places GPS won\u2019t accurately reach<\/a>, another approach is to kit out an\u00a0interior with\u00a0lots of Bluetooth beacons \u2014 giving smartphone users located-locked\u00a0pings to fix\u00a0onto\u00a0to know where they are.<\/p>\n

The UK\u2019s second busiest airport, Gatwick, has opted for the latter\u00a0approach to power\u00a0an indoor navigation system\u00a0it\u2019s launching as part of a wider, multi-year transformation program.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s now\u00a0finished kitting out its two terminals\u00a0with around 2,000 battery-powered beacons so that digital map users will get a more accurate blue dot\u00a0as they wander around.\u00a0The beacon system will also be used to power an augmented reality wayfinding tool (pictured above) \u2014 so that mobile\u00a0users will be able to be guided to specific locations within the terminals via on-screen arrows. The beacon system is slated as\u00a0supporting positioning with\u00a0+\/-3m accuracy.<\/p>\n

Gatwick is planning to integrate indoor positioning into some of its apps, and says it\u2019s in discussions with airlines to tap into it for their own apps and services \u2014 giving example of them\u00a0being able to send push notifications to\u00a0warn passengers if they\u2019re\u00a0running late, or even make a decision on whether or not to\u00a0wait or offload luggage so an\u00a0aircraft can take off on time.<\/p>\n

Retailers and other third parties will\u00a0also be able to use the system\u00a0for proximity detection of potential shoppers and push marketing messages and offers \u2014 at least to those who have opted in to receive them.<\/p>\n

Gatwick says it will not be collecting any personal data via the beacons but says \u201cgeneric information on \u2018people densities\u2019 in different beacon zones\u201d will be\u00a0used to help improve airport operations \u2014 such as\u00a0queue measurement, streamlining passenger flows and reducing congestion.<\/p>\n

The airport has\u00a0worked with UK startup Pointr<\/a>\u00a0on the system. As well as developing software and managing the system on an ongoing basis, Pointr\u00a0is providing an\u00a0SDK with\u00a0support for 3D AR wayfinding to enable third parties to tap into the\u00a0functionality.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"\" Complex indoor environments such as airports and shopping malls can be a nightmare to find your way around. And while Google is eyeing smartphones with 3D sensors as one potential fix for places GPS won’t accurately reach, another approach is to kit out an interior with lots of Bluetooth beacons — giving smartphone users located-locked pings to fix onto to know where they are. Read More<\/a><\/p>\n

\n<\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a>\n<\/div>\n

\"\"\/ <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5817,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[59,66,26],"class_list":["post-341917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-media","tag-techcrunch","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5817"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=341917"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341917\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}