The use of Google Maps as a GPS, or more specifically, as a map and guide, is something that is well known to all. In fact, who has not ever used Google Maps to find where a specific street or establishment is? However, he still has a very large Achilles heel, the indoor and covered areaslike buildings and shopping malls. In November they launched an application that allowed uploading maps of interior areas. Now, they launch a new one to improve localization in covered areas, called Google Maps Floor Plans Tool.
Yes, for now only available in the United States, something that does not happen in the location of infections by COVID-19. Although, as happened with the one that allowed to upload the maps of the closed premises and establishments, it is expected that it will not take long to reach the rest of the world.
The problem of indoor location is the difficulty of the entry of the satellite wave in certain enclosures and places. However, it is not the only way to locate our position. For example, triangulating with the mobile signal, greater precision is achieved than only with GPS. Well, what Google is looking for now is dispense with the GPS signalas it is very weak indoors, and use all other signals present in that particular location, which includes the points WiFi, telecommunication antennas GSM and 3G, and even anything that transmits, such as weather stations.
Thus, the work of Google Maps Floor Plans Tool, is to locate the position of the emitters of these signals in closed or covered places that already have a map uploaded by a user. The application guides the person carrying the smartphone around the entire venue, locating each of the signs that it detects and associating them even with the corresponding plant.
In fact, the best of all is that, if we have uploaded the plans of several floors of the same place, and after we have marked the places that this application asked us, Google Maps will be able to recognize the plant in which we are and show us the plane corresponding to it. The application is now available in Google Play, but yes, at the moment only available to US citizens and in English.