Indoor Positioning, Localization, and Navigation (PLN) systems present unique opportunities for enhancing visitor experiences in cultural heritage venues such as museums, galleries, and exhibitions. However, cultural heritage environments impose distinct constraints such as architectural limitations, preservation requirements, and restricted sensor deployment that differentiate them from typical indoor settings. Despite growing interest in indoor PLN systems, no systematic review has examined how technologies and methodologies have been applied in these constrained cultural heritage contexts. This paper addresses this gap by presenting a systematic literature review using the PRISMA methodology of indoor PLN systems designed for, or tested in, cultural heritage venues. While PLN are commonly grouped under a single acronym, they represent distinct tasks with different goals, a distinction our review carefully accounts for in its analysis of 44 peer-reviewed works published between 2020 and 2025, examining technologies, methodologies, evaluation metrics, and their tradeoffs. Our analysis reveals significant heterogeneity across solutions, identifying eight distinct technologies and eight methodological approaches. Bluetooth emerges as the preferred technology, and important tradeoffs appear between deployment cost, accuracy, infrastructure requirements, and task-specific constraints when it comes to mixing different technologies and methodologies. Moreover, we identify severe reproducibility issues. Based on our systematic analysis, we propose practical guidelines that explicitly balance application requirements, environmental constraints, budget limitations, and accuracy expectations. We validate these guidelines through a real-world deployment using Bluetooth technology in a museum. Moreover, we highlight directions for future research, including the need for community benchmarks, overlooked technologies, standardized evaluation protocols, and improved open science practices.
Ferrato, A., Gasparetti, F., Limongelli, C., Mastandrea, S., Sansonetti, G., Torres-Sospedra, J. (2026). Indoor positioning, localization, and navigation systems for cultural heritage: A five-year systematic review. INTERNET OF THINGS, 39 [10.1016/j.iot.2026.102011].
Indoor positioning, localization, and navigation systems for cultural heritage: A five-year systematic review
Ferrato A.
;Gasparetti F.;Limongelli C.;Mastandrea S.;Sansonetti G.;
2026-01-01
Abstract
Indoor Positioning, Localization, and Navigation (PLN) systems present unique opportunities for enhancing visitor experiences in cultural heritage venues such as museums, galleries, and exhibitions. However, cultural heritage environments impose distinct constraints such as architectural limitations, preservation requirements, and restricted sensor deployment that differentiate them from typical indoor settings. Despite growing interest in indoor PLN systems, no systematic review has examined how technologies and methodologies have been applied in these constrained cultural heritage contexts. This paper addresses this gap by presenting a systematic literature review using the PRISMA methodology of indoor PLN systems designed for, or tested in, cultural heritage venues. While PLN are commonly grouped under a single acronym, they represent distinct tasks with different goals, a distinction our review carefully accounts for in its analysis of 44 peer-reviewed works published between 2020 and 2025, examining technologies, methodologies, evaluation metrics, and their tradeoffs. Our analysis reveals significant heterogeneity across solutions, identifying eight distinct technologies and eight methodological approaches. Bluetooth emerges as the preferred technology, and important tradeoffs appear between deployment cost, accuracy, infrastructure requirements, and task-specific constraints when it comes to mixing different technologies and methodologies. Moreover, we identify severe reproducibility issues. Based on our systematic analysis, we propose practical guidelines that explicitly balance application requirements, environmental constraints, budget limitations, and accuracy expectations. We validate these guidelines through a real-world deployment using Bluetooth technology in a museum. Moreover, we highlight directions for future research, including the need for community benchmarks, overlooked technologies, standardized evaluation protocols, and improved open science practices.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
