Integração de localização baseada em movimento na aplicação móvel EduPARK

More and more, mobile applications require precise localization solutions in a variety of environments. Although GPS is widely used as localization solution, it may present some accuracy problems in special conditions such as unfavorable weather or spaces with multiple obstructions such as public parks. For these scenarios, alternative solutions to GPS are of extreme relevance and are widely studied recently. This dissertation studies the case of EduPARK application, which is an augmented reality application that is implemented in the Infante D. Pedro park in Aveiro. Due to the poor accuracy of GPS in this park, the implementation of positioning and marker-less augmented reality functionalities presents difficulties. Existing relevant systems are analyzed, and an architecture based on pedestrian dead reckoning is proposed. The corresponding implementation is presented, which consists of a positioning solution using the sensors available in the smartphones, a step detection algorithm, a distance traveled estimator, an orientation estimator and a position estimator. For the validation of this solution, functionalities were implemented in the EduPARK application for testing purposes and usability tests performed. The results obtained show that the proposed solution can be an alternative to provide accurate positioning within the Infante D. Pedro park, thus enabling the implementation of functionalities of geocaching and marker-less augmented reality.Cada vez mais, as aplicações móveis requerem soluções de localização precisa nos mais variados ambientes. Apesar de o GPS ser amplamente usado como solução para localização, pode apresentar alguns problemas de precisão em condições especiais, como mau tempo, ou espaços com várias obstruções, como parques públicos. Para estes casos, soluções alternativas ao GPS são de extrema relevância e veem sendo desenvolvidas. A presente dissertação estuda o caso do projeto EduPARK, que é uma aplicação móvel de realidade aumentada para o parque Infante D. Pedro em Aveiro. Devido à fraca precisão do GPS nesse parque, a implementação de funcionalidades baseadas no posionamento e de realidade aumentada sem marcadores apresenta dificuldades. São analisados sistemas relevantes existentes e é proposta uma arquitetura baseada em localização de pedestres. Em seguida é apresentada a correspondente implementação, que consiste numa solução de posicionamento usando os sensores disponiveis nos smartphones, um algoritmo de deteção de passos, um estimador de distância percorrida, um estimador de orientação e um estimador de posicionamento. Para a validação desta solução, foram implementadas funcionalidades na aplicação EduPARK para fins de teste, e realizados testes com utilizadores e testes de usabilidade. Os resultados obtidos demostram que a solução proposta pode ser uma alternativa para a localização no interior do parque Infante D. Pedro, viabilizando desta forma a implementação de funcionalidades baseadas no posicionamento e de realidade aumenta sem marcadores.EduPARK é um projeto financiado por Fundos FEDER através do Programa Operacional Competitividade e Internacionalização - COMPETE 2020 e por Fundos Nacionais através da FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia no âmbito do projeto POCI-01-0145-FEDER-016542.Mestrado em Engenharia Informátic

Mobile phone technology as an aid to contemporary transport questions in walkability, in the context of developing countries

The emerging global middle class, which is expected to double by 2050 desires more walkable, liveable neighbourhoods, and as distances between work and other amenities increases, cities are becoming less monocentric and becoming more polycentric. African cities could be described as walking cities, based on the number of people that walk to their destinations as opposed to other means of mobility but are often not walkable. Walking is by far the most popular form of transportation in Africa’s rapidly urbanising cities, although it is not often by choice rather a necessity. Facilitating this primary mode, while curbing the growth of less sustainable mobility uses requires special attention for the safety and convenience of walking in view of a Global South context. In this regard, to further promote walking as a sustainable mobility option, there is a need to assess the current state of its supporting infrastructure and begin giving it higher priority, focus and emphasis. Mobile phones have emerged as a useful alternative tool to collect this data and audit the state of walkability in cities. They eliminate the inaccuracies and inefficiencies of human memories because smartphone sensors such as GPS provides information with accuracies within 5m, providing superior accuracy and precision compared to other traditional methods. The data is also spatial in nature, allowing for a range of possible applications and use cases. Traditional inventory approaches in walkability often only revealed the perceived walkability and accessibility for only a subset of journeys. Crowdsourcing the perceived walkability and accessibility of points of interest in African cities could address this, albeit aspects such as ease-of-use and road safety should also be considered. A tool that crowdsources individual pedestrian experiences; availability and state of pedestrian infrastructure and amenities, using state-of-the-art smartphone technology, would over time also result in complete surveys of the walking environment provided such a tool is popular and safe. This research will illustrate how mobile phone applications currently in the market can be improved to offer more functionality that factors in multiple sensory modalities for enhanced visual appeal, ease of use, and aesthetics. The overarching aim of this research is, therefore, to develop the framework for and test a pilot-version mobile phone-based data collection tool that incorporates emerging technologies in collecting data on walkability. This research project will assess the effectiveness of the mobile application and test the technical capabilities of the system to experience how it operates within an existing infrastructure. It will continue to investigate the use of mobile phone technology in the collection of user perceptions of walkability, and the limitations of current transportation-based mobile applications, with the aim of developing an application that is an improvement to current offerings in the market. The prototype application will be tested and later piloted in different locations around the globe. Past studies are primarily focused on the development of transport-based mobile phone applications with basic features and limited functionality. Although limited progress has been made in integrating emerging advanced technologies such as Augmented Reality (AR), Machine Learning (ML), Big Data analytics, amongst others into mobile phone applications; what is missing from these past examples is a comprehensive and structured application in the transportation sphere. In turn, the full research will offer a broader understanding of the iii information gathered from these smart devices, and how that large volume of varied data can be better and more quickly interpreted to discover trends, patterns, and aid in decision making and planning. This research project attempts to fill this gap and also bring new insights, thus promote the research field of transportation data collection audits, with particular emphasis on walkability audits. In this regard, this research seeks to provide insights into how such a tool could be applied in assessing and promoting walkability as a sustainable and equitable mobility option. In order to get policy-makers, analysts, and practitioners in urban transport planning and provision in cities to pay closer attention to making better, more walkable places, appealing to them from an efficiency and business perspective is vital. This crowdsourced data is of great interest to industry practitioners, local governments and research communities as Big Data, and to urban communities and civil society as an input in their advocacy activities. The general findings from the results of this research show clear evidence that transport-based mobile phone applications currently available in the market are increasingly getting outdated and are not keeping up with new and emerging technologies and innovations. It is also evident from the results that mobile smartphones have revolutionised the collection of transport-related information hence the need for new initiatives to help take advantage of this emerging opportunity. The implications of these findings are that more attention needs to be paid to this niche going forward. This research project recommends that more studies, particularly on what technologies and functionalities can realistically be incorporated into mobile phone applications in the near future be done as well as on improving the hardware specifications of mobile phone devices to facilitate and support these emerging technologies whilst keeping the cost of mobile devices as low as possible

Application-Specific Things Architectures for IoT-Based Smart Healthcare Solutions

Human body is a complex system organized at different levels such as cells, tissues and organs, which contributes to 11 important organ systems. The functional efficiency of this complex system is evaluated as health. Traditional healthcare is unable to accommodate everyone's need due to the ever-increasing population and medical costs. With advancements in technology and medical research, traditional healthcare applications are shaping into smart healthcare solutions. Smart healthcare helps in continuously monitoring our body parameters, which helps in keeping people health-aware. It provides the ability for remote assistance, which helps in utilizing the available resources to maximum potential. The backbone of smart healthcare solutions is Internet of Things (IoT) which increases the computing capacity of the real-world components by using cloud-based solutions. The basic elements of these IoT based smart healthcare solutions are called "things." Things are simple sensors or actuators, which have the capacity to wirelessly connect with each other and to the internet. The research for this dissertation aims in developing architectures for these things, focusing on IoT-based smart healthcare solutions. The core for this dissertation is to contribute to the research in smart healthcare by identifying applications which can be monitored remotely. For this, application-specific thing architectures were proposed based on monitoring a specific body parameter; monitoring physical health for family and friends; and optimizing the power budget of IoT body sensor network using human body communications. The experimental results show promising scope towards improving the quality of life, through needle-less and cost-effective smart healthcare solutions