Smart Hospital - Combining BIM and Indoor Position System

Abstract

This thesis aimed to investigate how to improve the accuracy of indoor positioning systems in large building complexes. Especially considered in this work, was a case where a wireless local area network infrastructure was already in place, and using this technology in combination with building information models to track asset tags placed on objects and persons. The work was done in collaboration with St. Olav s Hospital, where a prototype system integrated in an enterprise BIM strategy was developed by Jotne EPM Technology for St. Olav Eiendom.

The thesis was based on a previous master thesis at IDI, NTNU, where it was unveiled that a location system featuring BIM was promising. Therefore, this current thesis was supposed to do an implementation and more extensive testing phase, but this was unfortunately not possible. Instead, data was gathered by doing a literature study of technologies and methods and by researching other state-of-the-art indoor positioning systems. Potential use of BIM was found, as these models contain lots of useful semantic information for improving accuracy. Several positioning techniques were found promising, most prominent being map matching algorithms. Combination of technologies and methods also holds potential, bringing out the best advantages in each of them.