US Patent 8259692 Method providing positioning and navigation inside large buildings

Positioning and/or navigation of an electronic device within a building when GPS signals are unavailable is provided. The electronic device scans for available Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) Access Points (APs) upon, e.g., entering a building. The electronic device detects a signal (e.g., beacon) from at least one available WLAN AP, whereupon the electronic device retrieves the indoor location of the available WLAN AP. The location information can be directly downloaded from the WLAN AP while in state-1 via, e.g., a Native Query Protocol which includes an extension to currently defined Native Query info elements that returns location information. Alternatively, the Media Access Control (MAC) address of the WLAN AP can be read from the beacon signal, which is then used to retrieve the location of the WLAN AP from an associated database. Additionally, various embodiments may be implemented with or via a mapping application or service, where the mapping application is able to display any floor's floor plan of a building and determine/obtain the position of the electronic device inside the building relative to the floor plan.