Last week Rivada Networks was granted a Japanese patent, covering its enhanced Location-Based Services (LBS), to add to its patents in the US, Canada, South Korea, Australia and Russia. Rivada’s eLBS offers up to a five-fold increase in location accuracy in “GPS-stressed environments” by using a combination of sensor fusion and, where available, ad hoc mesh networks between nearby devices to pinpoint the location of a mobile device. LBSs have been widely used in outdoor environments for navigation services in cars, airplanes and smartphones, where GPS allows a user to identify their coordinates on a map with an accuracy of approximately 10m. This fact, combined with the system’s poor performance indoors (due to no line of sight with the satellites) and its high toll on battery life, render it unsuitable for use within indoor settings. In smart buildings due to their connected-indoor nature, it is of primary importance to locate the user in order to […]