Location-based services

What are location-based services?

Gartner projects the indoor location services market to reach $55 billion revenue by 2030, up from $1.9 billion in 2021 (Gartner, Emerging Technologies: Revenue opportunity projection for indoor location services). Much of this growth is driven by the increase in trackable IoT devices. Indoor location services have already been widely adopted for healthcare, retail, hospitality, logistics, industrial, and manufacturing application.

Outdoor location is able to use GPS measurements because they have clear line of sight. Indoor location cannot rely on GPS. For example, when you use Google Maps on your mobile phone outdoors, it can calculate your location to an accuracy of several meters. However, when you use Google or Apple Maps indoors, the error of measurement is much larger.

For the past 20 years, the industry has been looking at new methods to provide accurate indoor measurements. Wi‑Fi location-based measurements can use fine time measurement (FTM) techniques based on the 802.11mc standard (also known as Wi‑Fi CERTIFIED Location) to calculate the round-trip time. The APs must know their precise location so that they can act as reference points for client devices.

APs act as the reference point from which client device measurements are based. Traditionally, IT would manually map APs and position them on hand-drawn, site-specific maps. This introduced error, especially because maps were not updated when APs were moved. The measurements were also typically locked in x-y coordinates that could not be used by standard mapping applications such as Google or Apple Maps. Because of the manual effort required, research shows that only 25% of APs are currently mapped. 

HPE uses a patented virtual BLE antenna array in access points to create directional beacon signals. Devices send signal data to the cloud, where AI-driven probability modeling (not triangulation) delivers highly accurate real-time location estimates. 

A mobile GPS receiver like the one you have in your phone will fail indoors. These receivers have been optimized to work well within the limitations of a very dynamic mobile device that must deliver a position quickly and support navigation. The GPS system in APs can be optimized specifically for a stationary indoor use case, where we have time and stability to integrate measurements over long periods of time and to combine measurements taken at different times of day when satellites may be in more favorable positions. Because the APs are deployed together and share their location information, those that have a better view of the sky are able to provide very high-quality assistance to improve the sensitivity of those that are more challenged. Because we have precise knowledge of relative positions from FTM, we are able to combine measurements from different APs and resolve those into individual locations.

Low Power Indoor (LPI) devices are already approved for use in the 6 GHz band for Wi‑Fi 6E and in the future Wi‑Fi 7 but for higher frequencies, regulators require that incumbent users of the spectrum are protected. Automate Frequency Coordination services, such as Federated Wireless's, rely on location determination to protect incumbents and unlock the additional 1200 MHz of spectrum in countries that follow the US FCC model (500 MHz in many European countries). This additional capacity in the 6 GHz band delivers greater speed, supports higher densities, and unlocks new use cases such as high-definition video and virtual reality.

802.11mc is an IEEE definition for Wi‑Fi which includes a ranging technology known as FTM. Unlike previous ranging technologies that were based on signal strength (RSSI), FTM uses round trip time to deliver higher levels of accuracy. Signal strength provides ~10-meter accuracy compared to 1–2-meter accuracy for FTM, dependent on the accuracy of the AP reference point placement. The Wi‑Fi Alliance has created a vendor certification known as Wi‑Fi CERTIFIED Location® for solutions that demonstrate 802.11mc functionality. HPE Aruba Networking is the only enterprise AP vendor to achieve Wi‑Fi Location certification.

802.11az is an IEEE amendment, also known as the next generation positioning standard. Recently finalized, it enables absolution and relative positioning of client devices using FTM at the same high-level of accuracy as ultra-wide band (UWB) techniques of less than 1 meter without the extensive overlay deployment.

Open Locate is an industry-wide initiative to standardize how APs share their reference locations with the ecosystem, over-the-air and via cloud-based APIs. This enables mobile devices to locate themselves and to support location and analytics applications such as workplace utilization, space analytics, geofencing, and wayfinding services. Devices that lack support for FTM can also participate; they can calculate ranges using the nearest AP using signal strength ranging via Wi‑Fi or Bluetooth radios that are built into the APs. HPE Aruba Networking is working in conjunction with IEEE and the Wi-Fi Alliance and ecosystem vendors such as Google, Samsung, Zebra, and Tile to formalize Open Locate.

Indoor Location Services transform the existing network into a real-time source of operational and business intelligence. Beyond simply locating people or assets, they enable:

• Turn-by-turn wayfinding, personalized employee and visitor experiences, location-aware security, and streamlined Wi-Fi onboarding. 
• Organizations gain visibility into space utilization, occupancy patterns, traffic flow, and asset locations, helping optimize workplace design, resource allocation, and operational efficiency. 
• Location data also supports smart building initiatives, sustainability programs, IoT integration, and workflow automation.

Most importantly, location creates a foundational data layer that provides the contextual intelligence needed for AI-driven decision-making, predictive analytics, and future autonomous operations. By leveraging existing network infrastructure, organizations can improve employee experiences, reduce costs, increase productivity, and make more informed business decisions without deploying separate location systems.