Multipath-Assisted Smartphone Tracking Using a Single Speaker and a Built-In Monaural Microphone

The use of location data offers significant convenience in both daily life and industry. However, global positioning system (GPS) is not effective indoors, so alternative technologies are necessary. Current positioning technologies require multiple transmitters and receivers or precollected data, le...

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Main Authors: Ibuki Yoshida, Masanari Nakamura, Hiroaki Murakami, Hiromichi Hashizume, Masanori Sugimoto
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: IEEE 2025-01-01
Series:IEEE Journal of Indoor and Seamless Positioning and Navigation
Subjects:
Online Access:https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/11029125/
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author Ibuki Yoshida
Masanari Nakamura
Hiroaki Murakami
Hiromichi Hashizume
Masanori Sugimoto
author_facet Ibuki Yoshida
Masanari Nakamura
Hiroaki Murakami
Hiromichi Hashizume
Masanori Sugimoto
author_sort Ibuki Yoshida
collection DOAJ
description The use of location data offers significant convenience in both daily life and industry. However, global positioning system (GPS) is not effective indoors, so alternative technologies are necessary. Current positioning technologies require multiple transmitters and receivers or precollected data, leading to high installation and implementation costs. Our study presents a low-cost tracking method that utilizes a single speaker installed on the ceiling and a smartphone’s monaural microphone. We leverage reflected waves from the walls and floor, treating them as signals from virtual speakers at the mirror-image positions of these surfaces. This approach ensures the generation of necessary signals for positioning and allows for accurate tracking using only a single speaker. However, as all the reflected waves are quite similar, it becomes challenging to associate each reflected wave with its corresponding virtual speaker. We designed an evaluation function to address this, considering real-world challenges, such as undetected reflected waves, outliers, and overlapping signals. We evaluate the correspondence between the prediction and the observation using a likelihood function, weighted by the number of outliers. When the reflected signals are overlapped, we introduce ambiguity by increasing the variance of the normal distribution. Our method accurately identifies reflected waves and estimates the target’s trajectory with precision. We evaluated the method under varying conditions across multiple paths, achieving positioning accuracy with a 50th percentile error of 0.34 m and a 90th percentile error of 0.64 m. This led to a 62% performance improvement compared to the scenario that does not account for real-world challenges.
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publishDate 2025-01-01
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spelling doaj-art-913077aabb69467f868a00a85c3843ae2025-08-20T03:16:14ZengIEEEIEEE Journal of Indoor and Seamless Positioning and Navigation2832-73222025-01-01319520410.1109/JISPIN.2025.357797611029125Multipath-Assisted Smartphone Tracking Using a Single Speaker and a Built-In Monaural MicrophoneIbuki Yoshida0https://orcid.org/0009-0000-2332-9421Masanari Nakamura1https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3069-9513Hiroaki Murakami2https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4691-7696Hiromichi Hashizume3https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0678-8647Masanori Sugimoto4https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3781-0539Hokkaido University, Sapporo, JapanHokkaido University, Sapporo, JapanThe University of Tokyo, Tokyo, JapanNational Institution for Academic Degrees and Quality Enhancement of Higher Education, Tokyo, JapanHokkaido University, Sapporo, JapanThe use of location data offers significant convenience in both daily life and industry. However, global positioning system (GPS) is not effective indoors, so alternative technologies are necessary. Current positioning technologies require multiple transmitters and receivers or precollected data, leading to high installation and implementation costs. Our study presents a low-cost tracking method that utilizes a single speaker installed on the ceiling and a smartphone’s monaural microphone. We leverage reflected waves from the walls and floor, treating them as signals from virtual speakers at the mirror-image positions of these surfaces. This approach ensures the generation of necessary signals for positioning and allows for accurate tracking using only a single speaker. However, as all the reflected waves are quite similar, it becomes challenging to associate each reflected wave with its corresponding virtual speaker. We designed an evaluation function to address this, considering real-world challenges, such as undetected reflected waves, outliers, and overlapping signals. We evaluate the correspondence between the prediction and the observation using a likelihood function, weighted by the number of outliers. When the reflected signals are overlapped, we introduce ambiguity by increasing the variance of the normal distribution. Our method accurately identifies reflected waves and estimates the target’s trajectory with precision. We evaluated the method under varying conditions across multiple paths, achieving positioning accuracy with a 50th percentile error of 0.34 m and a 90th percentile error of 0.64 m. This led to a 62% performance improvement compared to the scenario that does not account for real-world challenges.https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/11029125/Acoustic trackingindoor positioningmonaural microphonesingle speakersmartphonevirtual speaker
spellingShingle Ibuki Yoshida
Masanari Nakamura
Hiroaki Murakami
Hiromichi Hashizume
Masanori Sugimoto
Multipath-Assisted Smartphone Tracking Using a Single Speaker and a Built-In Monaural Microphone
IEEE Journal of Indoor and Seamless Positioning and Navigation
Acoustic tracking
indoor positioning
monaural microphone
single speaker
smartphone
virtual speaker
title Multipath-Assisted Smartphone Tracking Using a Single Speaker and a Built-In Monaural Microphone
title_full Multipath-Assisted Smartphone Tracking Using a Single Speaker and a Built-In Monaural Microphone
title_fullStr Multipath-Assisted Smartphone Tracking Using a Single Speaker and a Built-In Monaural Microphone
title_full_unstemmed Multipath-Assisted Smartphone Tracking Using a Single Speaker and a Built-In Monaural Microphone
title_short Multipath-Assisted Smartphone Tracking Using a Single Speaker and a Built-In Monaural Microphone
title_sort multipath assisted smartphone tracking using a single speaker and a built in monaural microphone
topic Acoustic tracking
indoor positioning
monaural microphone
single speaker
smartphone
virtual speaker
url https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/11029125/
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AT hiroakimurakami multipathassistedsmartphonetrackingusingasinglespeakerandabuiltinmonauralmicrophone
AT hiromichihashizume multipathassistedsmartphonetrackingusingasinglespeakerandabuiltinmonauralmicrophone
AT masanorisugimoto multipathassistedsmartphonetrackingusingasinglespeakerandabuiltinmonauralmicrophone