Wireless outdoor personal area network using adaptive inquiry scanning for location-based services

The Infopoint Explorer is an outdoor personal area network for location-based services that allows users to access locality information interactively using mobile computing devices such as PDAs and smartphones. The Infopoint explorer was used to study the limitations imposed by inexpensive and popular wireless technologies such as Bluetooth for outdoor location-based services. The Infopoint Explorer functioned as a multimedia guidebook that allowed access to location-specific information using wireless Infopoints. The Infopoints detect and attempt to transfer multimedia content to nearby mobile computing devices using Bluetooth connectivity. An adaptive Bluetooth Inquiry Access Code algorithm was developed to reduce the time taken for the Infopoint to detect nearby devices. The Infopoint was powered with solar panels and was deployed for a four-month trial. During the trial, over 8,000 Bluetooth connections were attempted, with 300 successful transfers.