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B. Brunner-Friedrich, V. Radoczky:
"Active Landmarks in Indoor Environments";
Poster: VISUAL 2005, Amsterdam; 2005-07-05; in: "Visual Information and Information Systems: 8th International Conference, VISUAL 2005, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, July 5, 2005, Revised Selected Papers", Lecture Notes in Computer Science / Springer-Verlag GmbH, Volume 3736 / 2006 (2005), ISBN: 3-540-30488-6; 203 - 215.

Landmarks are an important enhancement for pedestrian navigation systems. They are not only aids at decision points but they are also an affirmation to the user that he is still on the correct route.
Especially in indoor environments where the density of conventional landmarks is rather low, the implementation of so called "Active Landmarks" is an enrichment to the system. This notation derives from the fact that information is actively sent to the handheld device without any user interaction. That way the user receives information from and about a specific landmark, especially concerning its position and consequently the userīs position. This is particularly important within buildings where the user needs detailed position information. Because of the lack of outstanding elements, there are many possibilities to get lost and orientation is much more difficult than outdoors. Nevertheless positioning techniques are scarcely offered, and in case they are available their usage is cost intensive or not accurate enough. In this article the importance of Active Landmarks and their implementation with the help of new technologies like RFID is discussed.