Technology

What problem is Lighthouse solving?

Public indoor environments such as malls, resorts, transit centers, entertainment venues, and hospitals are in a blind spot today. GPS satellite signals cannot penetrate their walls and currently deployed location solutions such as cell triangulation and outdoor Wi-Fi databases have 50-100+ meter error rates that limit their effectiveness. We focus on providing accurate positioning for smartphones and other portable devices in the world’s major indoor spaces.

U.S. consumers spend over $750 billion and 600 billion minutes per year in the nation’s largest shopping malls alone. With over 50% of purchase decisions occurring in-store, location information can generate significant value in aiding shopper navigation and enabling targeted marketing. There is similar value in other indoor environments with significant commercial activity such as resorts, transit centers, and entertainment venues. Social applications and emergency services likewise stand to benefit from accurate indoor positioning.

What are Lighthouse’s assets and capabilities?

We have an end-to-end indoor positioning platform that we deploy as a package and also unbundle into individual components. In short, a developer or marketer can integrate our technology into an existing app and gain accurate location resolution to within several feet for their end users, opening up a powerful range of user experiences and location-based marketing opportunities.

A detailed review of our assets and capabilities, which are protected by both issued and pending patents, includes:

1. Indoor positioning database development.

Description. We develop high-accuracy indoor radio frequency (RF) databases to support infrastructure-free indoor positioning that does not require deployment of beacons or dedicated networks. Our database development platform takes RF scans from off-shelf handsets and associates them with accurate ground truth estimates by combining sensor analysis and a set of statistical techniques

Commercial model. We use our database development capability as part of our indoor positioning solution in combination with our location engine and SDK tools. We have also provided licensed access to our database capabilities: direct access to our database in the US for partners running their own proprietary positioning engine; licensed access to our database creation platform to partners in East Asia seeking to develop a regional footprint

Demonstrable results. We have developed the largest high-accuracy indoor positioning footprint globally. We cover over 150 million square feet of space and touch on over 15,000 retail locations including 14 of the 19 US mega-malls that are greater than 2 million square feet

2. Infrastructure-free indoor positioning engine.

Description. Our indoor positioning engine uses RF fingerprint matching to determine user location indoors. We host our engine in the cloud and it can also run locally on-device in order to avoid the need for network connectivity. Our positioning engine does not require the presence of beacons, a dedicated network, or access to any network. As long as we have a building’s RF environment in our database, we are able to provide indoor positioning for the location. Our engine returns building, floor, x/y coordinates, and universal latitude/longitude coordinates

Commercial model. We provide access to our indoor positioning engine as a service via our SDK, which developers can drop into their apps easily. We are also able to provide direct server-based access to our positioning engine

Demonstrable results. We are able to provide horizontal accuracy to within several feet and also differentiate floor presence. Our raw one-shot horizontal accuracy is 1-3 meters in rich RF environments and 5-7 meters in sparse RF environments. These results improve materially with tracking and fencing. Our raw one-shot vertical accuracy is 90%, which improves with tracking. Please refer below to field demo videos where we compare our indoor positioning results side-by-side with Google in venues where they have enabled indoor positioning

3. Integration with infrastructure-based indoor positioning solutions.

Description. We believe that ubiquitous indoor positioning that drives business impact for developers and marketers requires drawing from the best of multiple approaches. For venues with dedicated Wi-Fi networks, we have developed a highly scaled infrastructure that is able to translate network observations about roaming clients into real-time indoor positioning for apps and data analytics teams. Likewise, we are able to translate Bluetooth Low Energy beacon data into real-time indoor positioning for apps and data analytics teams

Commercial model. We integrate seamlessly with network-based indoor positioning data sources from any number of major base station manufacturers and our SDK brings real-time location from these sources to apps. Any app using our SDK automatically is able to access local network-based indoor positioning sources as well as our infrastructure-free solution. Our SDK prioritizes the most accurate positioning source when multiple sources are available

Demonstrable results. We have live deployments in-market receiving raw feeds from 1,000+ Wi-Fi access points and able to observe over 1 million daily client devices

4. SDK and indoor positioning platform tools.

Description. We have Android and iOS SDKs to bring indoor positioning to apps on both platforms. Our Android SDK accesses the full range of indoor positioning data sources; our iOS SDK accesses only network-based positioning data sources because Apple devices are not able to access RF fingerprints. Alongside our SDK, we have several platform tools that make indoor positioning immediately useful to developers and marketers:

Point of interest (POI) content management system that allows import and input of geo-fences for indoor venues. Our location engine automatically returns any triggered geo-fences with returned location results
Real-time marketing and message alerts. We host and deliver payloads associated with geo-fences, allowing delivery of targeted marketing campaigns alongside raw location results
Wayfinding routing engine that automatically generates paths between nodes

Commercial model. Our SDK is openly available to marketers and developers accessing our indoor positioning capability. Our team is able to support custom integrations with backend reporting systems on request

Demonstrable results. We have live demo apps in Google Play that indicate what a simple SDK integration looks like. We can point to third-party examples of integrations of our SDK as well

What are the distinguishing features of Lighthouse’s technology?

Indoor positioning solutions have existed for many years. Our approach is distinctive in combining micro-positioning accuracy and massive scalability. Highlights include:

Scalable RF database development. Scalability has been the single greatest challenge to indoor positioning availability. Traditionally, indoor positioning has required a choice between two unpalatable options: deploying hardware locally or undertaking a laborious effort to create an RF database where independent verification of ground truth is not readily available. Lighthouse cuts through this choice by accelerating database development by up to 20X versus existing approaches through automation and advanced analysis of sensor data

Accuracy. Our raw one-shot horizontal accuracy is 1-3 meters in rich RF environments and 5-7 meters in sparse RF environments. These results improve materially with tracking and fencing. Our raw one-shot vertical accuracy is 90%, which improves with tracking

Resiliency. Our location approach is resilient to environmental changes. Based on extended field data, 50% change in the RF environment leads to a 5-10% degradation in location accuracy for our engine before any self-healing is applied to the RF database

Accessing multiple technologies. We provide a front-end wrapper to make better use of Wi-Fi networks when they are deployed in-venue. We are able to extend raw data from these networks to provide real-time positioning to apps

Can Lighthouse demonstrate its technology?

We are happy to share in-person demonstrations of our technology at venues that are part of our network. Also, please check out the following demo videos:

Copley Place, Boston, MA

This video demonstrates our ability to differentiate floors and to provide micro-location within stores in addition to the major hallways and open spaces in a mall. Traditional location technologies and recent indoor solutions typically fail to provide accurate location inside of stores and have difficulty differentiating between floors

Vallco Cupertino, Cupertino, CA

This video demonstrates our technology side-by-side with Google’s indoor positioning service on Google Maps for Android. A few highlights about Lighthouse Signal Systems advantages:

Able to differentiate floors
High accuracy of 5-7 meters (versus 55 meters for Google)
Rapid set-up: this mall was added to our network by a single member of our ops team in less than half a day

Home Depot, Natick, MA