Indoor Navigation Solution

A global leader in location-based services and solutions, our client caters to the navigation needs of automotive manufacturers, governments, enterprises, and individual consumers. Our client is a committed member of the Navigation Data Standard Association and offers real-time traffic services and tools that enable in-vehicle navigation, advanced driver assistance, and mobile location awareness.

Millions of drivers worldwide already appreciate the high level of service and unique navigation experience made possible by our client. Timely offline and over-the-air map updates, live traffic feed services, routing, guidance, POI search, mobile navigation apps, and 3D venue maps for indoor mapping and navigation are only a few of the things our client offers.

Business challenge

For more than a decade, our client’s core business has been focused on outdoor mapping. Their footprint in the indoor mapping services has never been noticeable compared to that of their rivals. Given the rising global demand for indoor mapping technology, positioning, routing, and guidance, however, our client needed to make a bold move to gain ground on key competitors in this market.

Our client decided to expand their indoor mapping solutions offering for B2B and B2C, which would unlock new opportunities for workspace optimization, factory movement tracking, and facility navigation. This decision required moving their legacy indoor solutions onto the latest technology stack and merging them into their production map compilation ecosystem.

Experiencing a shortage of in-house development capacity, the company conducted a quick search for a reliable technology partner. The choice was obvious for them. Having actively collaborated on large automotive programs since 2015, Intellias was entrusted to take up the project.

Technology solution

We started our cooperation by analyzing the capacity required for a comprehensive development phase. The Intellias team is divided into three sub-teams.

The first sub-team works on tools for creating and administering venue maps, including a web portal for venue editing. These tools let venue owners create their own private venue maps and upload them to our client’s system. Our second team develops RESTful web services for indexing and searching for venues, which is aimed at end consumers. The third team is responsible for integrating venue maps into mobile mapping apps for iOS and Android devices.

Our teams actively participate in the development of our client’s last-meter guidance service, bridging the gap between outdoor and indoor navigation. This service can guide a driver directly to a free parking space inside a private or public venue based on live parking data. The service is synchronized with a driver’s mobile device and enables building accurate routes from the parking space to a specific location inside a mall, airport, or train station.

Business outcomes

We’re growing our relationship and defining a new global standard for indoor mapping. Currently, our efforts are focused on increasing the number of onboarded venue map providers that supply multi-format data such as CAD drawings, floor plans, photos, and JSON and XML files. These inputs are then converted into our client’s unified indoor mapping format.

Additionally, we’re actively promoting indoor maps on the web and on platforms including Google Maps and Yahoo Maps. This will allow venue owners to place and display maps of their venues on a variety of platforms so end users can navigate and search for points of interest.

Intellias’ expertise is helping our client

• Become a notable player in the global indoor mapping industry
• Increase their global venue coverage with new data vendor integrations
• Grow their marketplace with tools for businesses to build their own custom venue maps
• Offer commercial uses for indoor maps to the retail, travel, education, healthcare, and other sectors
• Introduce the concept of indoor mapping to the automotive navigation domain
• Promote venue maps to other popular mapping platforms