← Project archiveSIDE QUEST · sanitized
BLE Warehouse Positioning
Triangulation where GPS met a warehouse full of metal
Indoor positioning for order pickers using BLE distance estimates.
The useful requirements were not in a ticket. I walked into the warehouse, watched how order pickers moved and asked where the PDA slowed them down. Metal made GPS unreliable.
The triangulation research existed; turning it into something useful on customized Android scanners—and validating it with the people doing the work—was the engineering.
What I walked intoThe setup
GPS was unreliable inside a metal-heavy warehouse.
How I untangled itThe turning point
I observed staff workflows, then used BLE beacon distance estimates and triangulation in customized Android scanners.
01BLE beacons
02Android scanner
03Distance estimates
04Triangulated position
05Shelf target
What changedWhere it landed
Affected picking tasks improved from approximately 10–20 minutes to 5–10 minutes.