SAN JOSE, Calif., June 5, 2013 — mCube, the leading supplier of single-chip MEMS motion sensors and software, today announced availability of the GO2OTM Pedestrian Navigation Engine, offering improved indoor navigation capabilities for motion sensor-equipped mobile devices. GO2O takes advantage of positioning information derived from the inertial-sensors available in virtually all current smartphones, and combines it with GPS and Wi-Fi positioning as well as indoor map information to synthesize a more accurate indoor location. Improving indoor location accuracy is a key component to creating a more seamless consumer retail experience by blending aspects of both offline and online commerce.
“With GO2O, mobile software developers can quickly location enable their apps to work indoors,” said Jobe Price, vice president of software at mCube. “GO2O is provided as a sensor agnostic portable software library, no modification of the underlying phone platform is needed.” The only requirement is that the handset includes an accelerometer, magnetometer and gyroscope, which are standard on virtually all Android, Windows and iOS smartphones.
Achieving indoor navigation accuracy is an extreme technical challenge. GPS signals are quickly lost once indoors. Wi-Fi positioning accuracy is limited and depends on the density and mapping accuracy of available Wi-Fi hotspots. Sensor-based positioning also faces key challenges. Low-cost accelerometers, magnetometers, and gyroscopes position accuracy degrades quickly without appropriate correction within the dead reckoning navigation algorithms. In addition, a mobile device moves in a semi-independent manner in relation to a user’s body, yet this complex movement must be synthesized into an accurate user position across real-world range-of-motion.
GO2O algorithms have significantly improved the state-of-the-art in regards to core indoor location capability and user/phone dynamics. Robust signal processing enables enhanced accuracy across common use scenarios. GO2O can determine if a user is stationary, walking, running or travelling in a vehicle. The handset can be swinging in a hand or purse, in a shirt or pants pocket, held in front of the user for viewing or in constant transition and the GO2O engine can maintain position accuracy to within 10% of distance travelled, while only relying on inertial sensor data.
To further enhance location accuracy and lessen reliance on wide-area position fixes, GO2O utilizes mapping data to provide constraints that guide the position engine. Navigation blending integrates inertial dead reckoning with GPS, Wi-Fi and map data to enable a more reliable position fix than that available from each individual technology. GO2O supports aisle-level indoor accuracy, which opens up exciting possibilities for new indoor location applications and services, such as shopping assistants or point-of-purchase coupons.
The GO2O Pedestrian Navigation Engine is available today for integration into mobile applications. Please contact mCube for more details.
About mCube
mCube is enabling a new generation of motion aware consumer mobile products. mCube delivers platform independent indoor navigation software and cost-effective single-chip motion sensors to improve user interactivity and enable new motion-based applications. mCube is addressing a dynamic and rapidly growing market. The consumer motion sensor and software markets are growing in excess of 20% per year, and are expected to exceed $2.6 billion by 2015.
