Strategic allocation of landmarks to reduce uncertainty in indoor navigation

Indoor navigation systems often rely on verbal, turn-based route instructions. These can, at times, be ambiguous at complex decision points with multiple paths intersecting under angles that are not well distinguished by the turn grammar used. Landmarks can be included into turn instructions to reduce this ambiguity. Here, we propose an approach to optimize landmark allocation to improve the clarity of route instructions. This study assumes that landmark locations are constrained to a pre-determined set of slots. We select a minimum-size subset of the set of all slots and allocate it with landmarks, such that the navigation ambiguity is resolved. Our methodology leverages computational geometric analysis, graph algorithms, and optimization formulations to strategically incorporate landmarks into indoor route instructions. We propose a method to optimize landmark allocation in indoor navigation guidance systems, improving the clarity of route instructions at complex decision points that are inadequately served by turn-based instructions alone. •A novel approach combining computational geometry, and optimization to allocate landmarks in indoor environments.•Algorithm identifies uncertain decision points based on turn-based route instruction grammars.•Criteria quantify path segment uncertainty for landmark allocation.•Integer linear programming maximizes uncertainty reduction and minimizes landmark count.•Findings show more complex layouts need more landmarks for effective uncertainty reduction.