Hello,
I finished my Bachelor Thesis called "Improving Indoor Location Awareness using Bluetooth Low Energy Beacons" under the supervision of Sebastian Hueber.
Here is the abstract and you can find the full thesis here:
This work aims to improve indoor location awareness using Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons by providing a framework for developers written in Swift, a programming language created by Apple. Prior to the framework being introduced and discussed, a general overview over local positioning techniques, including advantages and disadvantages, is given. Furthermore, two frameworks provided by Apple are covered, detailing how they can be and were used for the task at hand. The following chapters will also state relevant thought processes and decisions made during the creation of this work. The entire framework and findings of this thesis have been conducted at the i10 chair of the RWTH university using an array of about 20 Bluetooth Low Energy beacons similar to the ones deployed in the Centre Charlemagne museum in Aachen, Germany. Although frameworks should provide tools to developers without assuming their specific use cases, the beforementioned museum acted as a concrete example to solve. The museum was visited once for testing purposes in a real life scenario. This paper shows that it still is a tricky undertaking in 2022 to work with Bluetooth Low Energy beacons, especially on closed systems like most smartphones these days. Given the wide availability of smartphones today, it makes sense to use them as a platform, however, it also means limited access to the system for less control over data. Results of this work, such as the Swift framework, aim to support most applications with Bluetooth Low Energy beacons.