The mobile phone as a platform for assisting the independent living ...

6.6 Future workIn this section we propose some ideas in order to improve the accuracy of thislocalization system. A first step to derive a better estimate of the user’s current location isto use a history-based approach based on the past locations of the user. In this approach,the web server monitors the trajectory of the user and tracks his location in order toextract ordinary routes. Of course, to follow this approach we should alter the mobileapplication to capture more pictures in short intervals. When the server receives a queryimage, it looks at the last n-1 query images. The current location of the user is the onethat maximizes the probability of seeing the n query images in the shortest period oftime.Moreover, checking the strengths and weaknesses of each image retrieval algorithm usedin this application could result in finding a better weighted combination that optimizesthe localization results.Another idea to achieve better results is to combine this application with anotherlocalization system. For example, as we already take advantage of the mobile phone’scapabilities, we could use the Bluetooth or Wi-Fi infrastructure that exists in mostmodern mobile phones.Finally, we observed that the performance of this indoor localization system is extremelylimited by the varying illumination conditions that occur inside a house during the day. Itwould be interesting to test this application with next generation cameras that capturehigher quality photographs.40