Indoor Navigation Enhanced by Map-Matching

2004

Pedestrians have often ways in unfamiliar urban environment or in complex buildings. In these cases they need guidance to reach their targets, for example a specific room in a local authorities' building, a counter, or an institute at an university. The goal of location-based mobile services is to provide such guidance on demand (anywhere, anytime), individually tailored to the actual information needs and presented in preferred forms. This project is focusing on the information aspect of location-based services, i.e., on the user's task at hand and the support of the user's decisions by information provided by such a service. Specifying a task ontology will yield context-dependent conceptualizations, activities, and references to directions from the user's perspective. These specifications will allow to:

People are fond of travelling to various places and are unaware of the directions and the route to be followed. Without knowing the accurate and optimal directions they might end up getting to a wrong place. This paper introduces NTS (Navigation Tracker System), which is implemented to provide the tourist with the map along with the directions showing the optimal path between the source and the destination. We intended to create a lightweight interface for Android mobile device. The system integrates Google Maps API, Android Software Development Kit (Android SDK), ASPX web page created on web server and web 2.0 technologies like Javascript with .NET technologies. The output is a system which not only consumes less resources of the host device as compared to Google Maps application but also consumes 30 times less space on the device. NTS will also provide additional information like directions, time and distance between the source and the destination which are not provided implicitly in other applications.

Advances in Location-Based Services, 2012

This paper studies the use of indoor infrastructures for navigation in several currently available route planners. In the context of an increasing dependence on positioning and navigation tools, a shift has taken place from solely outdoor applications to the indoor environment. Although location based services and indoor positioning techniques may have gotten increasing attention from research and commercial point of view, ubiquitous indoor navigation systems are not yet available on the market. With people moving seamlessly from indoor to outdoor, systems that integrate navigation in both will be the next challenge in navigational research. This paper contributes to this integration of the notion of indoor and outdoor space by studying its impact on route planners. A review of various case studies in multiple route planners has been carried out which reveal different aspects and requirements for the indoor-outdoor connection in way finding. Currently, mostly data constraints prevent the optimal use of all navigation routes. Additional problems were discovered with address matching methodologies influencing the exit choice of buildings (leading in some cases to sub optimal routing). Recommendations are made for future enhancements based on the product to market implications to come to a better integration of indoor with outdoor infrastructures.

In large urban areas, until recently, people used to choose a route having in mind the general, high-level mental map of the urban traffic network. With the dissemination of the use of navigation devices such as GPS, all roads may now be part of a path. Therefore two questions arise, that are related to the performance of the traffic network as a whole, and to the effects of the use of these navigation devices on travelers that usually only do short trips in their own neighborhoods. Our preliminary results show that the average overall travel times indeed decrease with the use of GPS. However, travelers who used to avoid arterial roads are strongly penalized.

People are fond of travelling to various places and are unaware of the directions and the route to be followed. Without knowing the accurate and optimal directions they might end up getting to a wrong place. This paper introduces NTS (Navigation Tracker System), which is implemented to provide the tourist with the map along with the directions showing the optimal path between the source and the destination. We intended to create a lightweight interface for Android mobile device. The system integrates Google Maps API, Android Software Development Kit (Android SDK), ASPX web page created on web server and web 2.0 technologies like Javascript with .NET technologies. The output is a system which not only consumes less resources of the host device as compared to Google Maps application but also consumes 30 times less space on the device. NTS will also provide additional information like directions, time and distance between the source and the destination which are not provided implicitly...

Reports on Geodesy and Geoinformatics, 2013

For many years, cartographers are involved in designing GIS and navigation systems. Most GIS applications use the outdoor data. Increasingly, similar applications are used inside buildings. Therefore it is important to find the proper model of indoor spatial database. The development of indoor navigation systems should utilize advanced teleinformation, geoinformatics, geodetic and cartographical knowledge. The authors present the fundamental requirements for the indoor data model for navigation purposes. Presenting some of the solutions adopted in the world they emphasize that navigation applications require specific data to present the navigation routes in the right way. There is presented original solution for indoor data model created by authors on the basis of BISDM model. Its purpose is to expand the opportunities for use in indoor navigation.

Communications of the ACM, 2012

nAVigATionAL inForMATion ProViDeD by a conventional global positioning system (GPS) navigation system is not adequately intuitive to a user. Moreover, the environment often affects the accuracy of a hardware sensor in a GPS navigation system, often causing users to become disoriented while navigating. This scenario illustrates how the navigation map provided by the conventional GPS system is not always consistent with a user's cognitive map.

Communication of ACM, 2011

nAVigATionAL inForMATion ProViDeD by a conventional global positioning system (GPS) navigation system is not adequately intuitive to a user. Moreover, the environment often affects the accuracy of a hardware sensor in a GPS navigation system, often causing users to become disoriented while navigating. This scenario illustrates how the navigation map provided by the conventional GPS system is not always consistent with a user's cognitive map.

2016

— The next generation of navigation and positioning systems must provide greater accuracy and reliability in a range of challenging environments to meet the needs of a variety of mission-critical applications. No single navigation technology is robust enough to meet these requirements on its own, so a multisensor solution is required. Although many new navigation and positioning methods have been developed in recent years, little has been done to bring them together into a robust, reliable, and cost-effective integrated system. To achieve this, four key challenges must be met: complexity, context, ambiguity, and environmental data handling. This paper addresses each of these challenges. It describes the problems, discusses possible approaches, and proposes a program of research and standardization activities to solve them. The discussion is illustrated with results from research into urban GNSS positioning, GNSS shadow matching, environmental feature matching, and context detection.

1989

The conference was sponsored by the IEEE Vehicular Technology Society, the Ontario Ministry of Transportation, and Transport Canada. A major goal of the conference, according to General Chairman Rye Case, was to "encourage interaction between the diverse communities which have an interest in vehicle navigation aids". Together for two days in one hotel were cellular phone vendors, automotive engineers, cartographers, GIS specialists, and highway administrators among others, providing a unique opportunity for interdisciplinary exchange of ideas regarding vehicle navigation systems. The conference consisted of fifteen paper sessions, including Programs and Policy, System and Technology Evaluation, Driver Response to Real-time Traffic Information, Digital Maps and Geographic Information Systems, Traffic Management Applications, and Human Factors. The papers reproduced here are intended to assist others in the study of human navigation, navigation systems, or spatial cognition in general. Their content is essentially the same as in the conference proceedings, although a few minor changes and corrections have been made, and the papers have been re-formatted and re-paginated. The first paper, by Scott M. Freundschuh, is a reaction to a paper first presented at the Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers in 1987 by Barbara Petchenik titled "A Road Not Taken", and later published in the American Cartographer in 1989. In Petchenik's paper, she asserted that vehicle navigation aids were being developed without concern for supporting theoretical models of how humans perform way-finding in an automobile, therefore, resulting in navigation systems that people cannot or will not use. Freundschuh asserts that supporting theoretical models do exist and that VNA developers must adopt a interdisciplinary approach to 'discover' these foundations. This paper reviews, in part, current research in spatial knowledge acquisition in computer science, psychology, and geography, and how these models can enhance VNA development. In addition, current research in cognitive psychology and environmental behavior concerning the presentation form of driving instructions to drivers of automobiles is discussed. The purpose of reviewing this varied research is to express the point that the development of effective VNAs is not a problem solvable by only one discipline, but is rather a multi-discipline endeavor. The second paper, by Michael D. Gould, considers the role of individual differences, an important yet controversial topic in cognitive psychology, in strategies for the provision of navigation assistance to drivers. Gould asserts that the population of drivers on this planet is not homogeneous, though the designers of vehicle navigation aids (VNAs) appear to assume so. Individuals differ in their level of spatial knowledge as well as in several cognitive abilities. This may mean that the optimal method of navigation information presentation (map display, verbal directions, speech output) will differ for individuals as well. It is suggested that the next generation of VNAs be designed to allow flexible, multi-modal presentation of navigation information, to better serve the majority of drivers no matter what their individual preferences or abilities. The third paper, by David M. Mark, proposes a theoretical model of the vehicle navigation system in its most generalized form. Systems represented by this model include five principal components or functions: geographic database; location of vehicle and destination; route planning; instruction generation; and vehicle control. The model suggests that these tasks may be performed by the mind of the driver, by the minds of other humans (either in the car or connected by cellular phone or other means), and by various computers and analog devices both in the car and elsewhere. Situations as varied as a driver travelling to work, a person studying a map to produce written directions for another to use later, or an autonomous (robot) vehicle, all can be conceptualized using this model. Research can focus on which tasks to assign to people, and which to machines; on how best to perform each task (and "best" must be evaluated within a context of individual difference, discussed in Gould's paper); and how the components of the system can and should communicate.