BLE Indoor Asset Tracker with Floor-Map Dashboard

GPS stops at the front door: inside workshops, hospitals and warehouses, equipment goes missing because nobody knows which room it is in. This project brings positioning indoors with Bluetooth Low Energy: ESP32 beacons are fixed at known points on a scaled floor model, BLE tags ride on the assets, and a gateway ESP32 scans advertisements, converts RSSI to distance estimates, and trilaterates each tag's position. A web dashboard renders the floor map with live asset dots, zone assignments, and alerts when an asset leaves its assigned zone or a tag battery runs low. The project is rigorous about RSSI reality: signal strength is noisy and multipath-prone, so the report documents the filtering (moving averages, outlier rejection), states the achieved zone-level accuracy honestly, and explains why this is asset-zone tracking, not centimetre surveying.

1. Eight ESP32 beacons are fixed at surveyed positions on the floor model and broadcast BLE advertisements with their IDs.
2. BLE tags on the assets advertise at fixed intervals; the gateway ESP32 scans continuously and records RSSI per tag per beacon.
3. Firmware applies a moving-average filter with outlier rejection to the RSSI stream and converts it to distance via the log-distance path-loss model.
4. Trilateration from three or more beacons yields each tag's estimated position, published over Wi-Fi via MQTT.
5. The dashboard plots live asset dots on the floor map, checks zone assignments, and logs zone-change events.
6. When a tag leaves its assigned zone or its battery drops below threshold, an alert is raised with the asset ID.
7. The buyer runs the beacon survey and path-loss calibration procedure documented in the manual.

Tech stack:

• ESP32 beacons x8 (fixed)
• BLE asset tags (coin-cell)
• ESP32 gateway (scanner)
• MQTT broker + web dashboard
• Arduino IDE (C/C++ firmware)
• Scaled floor model with zones
• Path-loss calibration utility
• Tag battery replacement kit

• [BLE beacon network] Eight ESP32 beacons at fixed, known positions broadcast iBeacon-style advertisements across the floor model.
• [Asset tags] BLE tags on the model's assets advertise at intervals; coin-cell powered with battery-level reporting.
• [RSSI trilateration] The gateway converts filtered RSSI to distance estimates and trilaterates tag positions — real indoor-positioning math.
• [Live floor-map dashboard] Assets render as live dots on the floor schematic with zone labels, beacon positions and movement trails.
• [Zone enforcement] Each asset has an assigned zone; leaving it raises an out-of-zone alert with the asset ID and timestamp.
• [Tag battery watch] Tags report battery level; the dashboard flags tags needing replacement before they go dark.
• [Movement analytics] Zone-change events build the per-hour movement chart and the daily zone report used in the project report.

• Working floor model with 8 beacons, asset tags, gateway ESP32
• Complete firmware source (beacon FW, tag FW, gateway trilateration, MQTT)
• Live web dashboard (floor map, zones, alerts) demonstrated with the model
• Circuit and wiring documentation
• Beacon survey + path-loss calibration procedure
• Component list with ratings
• Project report PDF (indoor positioning background, BLE, RSSI physics, trilateration, methodology)
• PPT presentation for final review
• Viva Q&A preparation document (BLE, RSSI, trilateration, filtering, MQTT)
• Setup and demonstration guide

• RSSI positioning is inherently noisy — accuracy is zone-level (approximately 2-3 m expected), not centimetre-grade; the report states this plainly with the filtering discussion.
• Demonstrated on a scaled floor model; real buildings add multipath, human-body shadowing and Wi-Fi interference that the manual discusses.
• Tags need periodic battery replacement; the dashboard warns but cannot prevent a dead tag.
• Trilateration needs three or more beacons in range — coverage gaps degrade to proximity-level fixes.
• Calibration (path-loss exponent, beacon survey) is per-installation; moving beacons invalidates the map until re-surveyed.