The International conference on Indoor Positioning and Indoor Localization (IPIN) is pleased to announce the thirteenth IPIN Indoor Localization Competition. The competition is aimed at bringing together the academic and industrial research communities for evaluating different approaches and envisioning new methods for indoor and seamless localisation, an area where no generally accepted standards yet exist.

The competition builds on the experience of previous competitions and is based on the EvAAL framework , ensuring experience, solidity and a well-founded scientific method. The IPIN 2026 Indoor Localization Competition consists of several Tracks:

• Track 1: Smartphone (onsite)

• Track 3: Smartphone (online)

• Track 4: Foot-mounted IMU (online)

• Track 6: Smartphone on vehicle (onsite)

• Track 7: 5G CIR with Sparse References (offline)

Results will be presented during dedicated sessions of the IPIN conference, during which prizes will be awarded to the winners. Prizes are awarded for a total worth to be announced.

ONSITE TRACKS

The onsite competition will take place in Roma, before the IPIN conference. An actor carries the competing system by moving in the competition area. Competing systems process data and provide position estimates in real time. Survey of the area and system calibration is restricted to a single day, before the competition proper.

Track 1 – Smartphone : An actor walks a mostly indoor route carrying the competitor's smartphone which runs the competing system, using the sensors available on the smartphones to identify the user's position.

Track 6 - Smartphone on vehicle : An actor carries a smartphone while walking a mostly indoor route and driving along a partly indoors, partly outdoors with impaired GNSS route, with the smartphone affixed to the car dashboard. The smartphone sends sensors data in real time to a dedicated server, while at the same time competitors get their data in real time from the same server.

OFFSITE TRACKS

Competitors in offsite competitions (online and offline) are provided with sensors data and use them to estimate the user position. Competitors calibrate their algorithms in advance using ground truth reference data (testing trials) and compete using new unreferenced data (scoring trials). Scoring trials are run on a Track-specific day. Once testing trials are published, competitors can run them at their premises. When the EvaalAPI server is made available, they must run the testing trials on it. Scoring trials are provided to competitors only once they complete a run of the testing trials.

ONLINE TRACKS

Competitors run their trials through the EvaalAPI in online mode to emulate the causal, real-time behaviour of onsite Tracks. See the paper "Offsite evaluation of localization systems: criteria, systems and results from IPIN 2021-22 competitions" for a conceptual overview.

Track 3 – Smartphone : A pedestrian walking under realistic conditions in buildings with possibly small outdoor parts, using data provided by a conventional smartphone.

Track 4 – Foot-mounted IMU : A pedestrian carries ULISS (Ubiquitous Localization with Inertial Sensors and Satellites) on his foot while walking a path with possible small outdoor parts. ULISS provides IMU, magnetic and pressure readings plus GNSS data. No maps are provided.

OFFLINE TRACKS

Competitors run their Trials through the EvaalAPI in offline mode, where competitors download sensors data all at once and have a limited time to upload all estimates at once.

Track 7 - 5G CIR with Sparse References : 5G CIRs are collected from eight distributed antennas in a multipath-rich maintenance facility, with only a sparsely labeled reference set, which can be addressed by pertaining or channel charting.

TECHNICAL COMPETITION DETAILS

The evaluation criteria for the competition, restrictions on the accepted technologies, technical rules and a description of the benchmarks are detailed in the technical annexes to this call. Possible refinements of the annexes, even based on applicants' comments, will be distributed on the competition discussion mailing list contest(at)evaal.aaloa.org and will appear on the competition site .

Competitors in online and offline Tracks get sensor readings and submit position estimates through the EvaalAPI web service https://evaal.aaloa.org/evaalapi . The aim is to emulate a causal process similar to the data flow of an onsite Track: input data can be read only once and only in sequence, and the timestamp of each submitted position estimate is the same as the latest sensor reading.

All the data gathered by the competition committee during the competition, including data produced by competing systems in online and offline Tracks, may be published after the competition for the purpose of research and comparison. Winners of the competition are announced on the IPIN web site and on the contest mailing list.

COMPETITOR ADMISSION PROCESS

A competitor can be any individual or group of individuals working as a single team, associated to a single or a number of organizations, who wants to participate in one or several tracks. Only one team from the same organisation (laboratory) is allowed to compete.

Competitors apply for admission to the competition tracks at https://competition.ipin-conference.org/current-competition/application by providing a short (2 pages in PDF) technical description of their localization system, including a description of the algorithms and protocols used. Track chairs will accept or refuse the application in a short time, based on technical feasibility and logistic constraints.

After acceptance of the competitor's technical description, one member of the competing team is required to register on the IPIN conference site, specifying the Track to which the registration is linked. Full registration to the conference covers participation in the competition process for one Track (allotted time, support and space) and the submission of one paper describing the system. Participation in additional Tracks can be added for an additional fee. A reduced registration fee not including access to the conference is available for online and offline Tracks.

Competitors who wish to test their onsite system which does not fit any of the onsite tracks may ask chairs of Track 1 to be admitted off-track, which will be granted subject to organisational constraints.

Be sure to subscribe to the contest mailing list to get updates on the competition: http://evaal.aaloa.org/mailman/listinfo/contest

IMPORTANT DATES

IPIN COMPETITION COMMITTEE

Antonino Crivello – ISTI-CNR (IT)
Miguel Ortiz – GEOLOC Team, University Gustave Eiffel (FR)
Joaquín Torres-Sospedra – Universitat de València (ES)
Francesco Potortì – ISTI-CNR (IT)

Track chairs:
Track 1 Filippo Palumbo, Davide La Rosa – ISTI-CNR (IT)
Track 3 Joaquín Torres-Sospedra – Universitat de València, Antonio R. Jiménez – CAR, CSIC (ES)
Track 4 Miguel Ortiz, Ni Zhu – GEOLOC Team, University Gustave Eiffel (FR)
Track 6 Wenchao Zhang, Ji Xinchun – AIR-CAS (CN)
Track 7 Jonas Pirkl, Andreas Eidloth – Fraunhofer IIS (DE)