Call For Competition

We are pleased to announce the IPIN 2016 Indoor Localization Competition, to be held during the IPIN 2016 Conference at the city of Alcalá de Henares, Madrid (Spain). The competition is aimed at bringing together the academic and industrial research communities for evaluating different approaches and envisioning new research opportunities for the indoor localization area, where no accepted standards do yet exist.

IPIN 2016 Indoor Localization Competition is based on the experience of previous editions sponsored by IPIN and EvAAL, the precursor organization behind the event, ensuring experience, solidity and a well-founded scientific method (http://evaal.aaloa.org).

IPIN 2016 Indoor Localization Competition will consist of several tracks, including on-site and off-site contests. Results will be presented within dedicated sessions during the IPIN conference and prizes will be awarded to the winners.

Competition Tracks

The following four tracks will be organized:

Track 1 "Smartphone-based": Competitors can use any sensor available on the smartphones to localize a pedestrian walking in multi-floor buildings. KICS awards a €1500 cash prize to the winner.

Track 2 "Pedestrian Dead Reckoning Positioning": Competitors can use MEMS sensors (inertial, compass and altimeter pressure sensors) mounted on the foot to localize a pedestrian walking in multi-floor buildings; electronic devices such as tablet, notebook, etc. can be used for control and monitoring. ETRI awards a €1500 cash prize to the winner.

Track 3 "Smartphone-based (off-site)": The goal is to localize a pedestrian walking under realistic conditions in multi-floor buildings using a conventional smartphone and its available signals (WiFi, inertial, magnetic, GPS, pressure, light,...). Competitors calibrate their algorithms with a ground truth referenced database, and compete using new unreferenced data. TECNALIA awards a €1500 cash prize to the winner.

Track 4 "Indoor mobile robot positioning": Competitors can install their system around a restricted area of navigation and onboard a mobile robot (without interaction with the mobile robot systems). The robot will follow a predetermined track that has to be obtained by the external positioning system. ASTI awards a €1500 cash prize to the winner.

Competition Site

Competitions will be held during the IPIN conference at the School of Engineering, University of Alcalá (see figure below).

In on-site tracks competitors will be given the time to pre-test and set up their solutions prior to the competition day, during which the system performance will be measured in real-time.

Off-site track (track 3) will be tested before and results also presented at the IPIN conference. Several files with measurements referenced to the corresponding ground truth will be available for training, as well as the one used for evaluation that will be disclosed without ground truth.

Aerial view and floorplan of the School of Engineering from the University of Alcalá, where the competition takes place. Geo-referenced CAD maps and other relevant data will be provided in advance to the competitors.

Technical Competition Details

The evaluation criteria for the competition, restrictions on the accepted technologies, technical rules to follow and a description of the benchmarks are detailed in the technical annexes to this call (to be provided or linked, as soon as possible, on the IPIN2016 website). Possible refinements of the annexes, also based on participating competitors' comments, will be timely distributed on the competition mailing lists.

Competitor's Admission Process

A "competitor" can be any individual or group of individuals working as a single team, associated to a single or a number of organizations, who wants to participate in one or several tracks using a well-defined localization technology.

Firstly, competitors apply for admission to the competition tracks by providing a short (2 to 4 pages) "technical description" of their localization system, including details on algorithms and protocols. At this stage, this document must be sent by e-mail to the chair of the particular track (see Competition Organizing Committee below). Any doubts prior to sending the "technical description" can be also solved at these e-mails. The IPIN 2016 Program Committee will accept or refuse the application in a short time, based on technical feasibility and logistic constraints.

Registration and Participation in the IPIN Conference

After acceptance of the competitor's technical description, one member of the team is required to be registered to the IPIN conference. During the registration process they have to indicate that current registration is linked to a competition track. Full registration to the conference covers the submission of a paper describing the system and the participation in the competition process (allocated time, support and space).

Competitor teams are invited to submit a "regular paper" or "work-in-progress" to the conference through the IPIN 2016 Registration link . The paper will follow a peer review process. All accepted papers will be included in the conference proceedings and "regular papers" presented at the conference will be also submitted to IEEE Xplore Digital Library. As a particular consideration for competitors, the deadline for admission of "work-in-progress" is extended to 10th September 2016.

Some competitors may prefer not to submit a paper to the IPIN conference; nevertheless they are required to make an oral presentation of their system during a dedicated session at the IPIN conference.

Those competitors that want to test their system in some of the tracks, but do not want to be included in the public rankings and compared with other competitors, can ask for that special condition in advance.

Results from the competition and the raw data from the winner systems and all systems whose teams choose to disclose them will be published after the competition for the purpose of research and comparison. Winners of the competition will be announced during the conference.

Important dates

Sponsorship (currently)

ETRI, the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute based in Korea

KICS, the Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences based in Korea

ASTI, Automatismos y Sistemas de Transporte Interno

TECNALIA

All issues related with general diffusion, local organization, program, funding, etc., will be coordinated by general IPIN 2016 Committees.