236 research outputs found
Improvement Schemes for Indoor Mobile Location Estimation: A Survey
Location estimation is significant in mobile and ubiquitous computing systems. The complexity and smaller scale of the indoor environment impose a great impact on location estimation. The key of location estimation lies in the representation and fusion of uncertain information from multiple sources. The improvement of location estimation is a complicated and comprehensive issue. A lot of research has been done to address this issue. However, existing research typically focuses on certain aspects of the problem and specific methods. This paper reviews mainstream schemes on improving indoor location estimation from multiple levels and perspectives by combining existing works and our own working experiences. Initially, we analyze the error sources of common indoor localization techniques and provide a multilayered conceptual framework of improvement schemes for location estimation. This is followed by a discussion of probabilistic methods for location estimation, including Bayes filters, Kalman filters, extended Kalman filters, sigma-point Kalman filters, particle filters, and hidden Markov models. Then, we investigate the hybrid localization methods, including multimodal fingerprinting, triangulation fusing multiple measurements, combination of wireless positioning with pedestrian dead reckoning (PDR), and cooperative localization. Next, we focus on the location determination approaches that fuse spatial contexts, namely, map matching, landmark fusion, and spatial model-aided methods. Finally, we present the directions for future research
Integrating Haptic Feedback into Mobile Location Based Services
Haptics is a feedback technology that takes advantage of the human sense of touch by
applying forces, vibrations, and/or motions to a haptic-enabled device such as a mobile
phone. Historically, human-computer interaction has been visual - text and images on
the screen. Haptic feedback can be an important additional method especially in Mobile
Location Based Services such as knowledge discovery, pedestrian navigation and notification
systems. A knowledge discovery system called the Haptic GeoWand is a low
interaction system that allows users to query geo-tagged data around them by using
a point-and-scan technique with their mobile device. Haptic Pedestrian is a navigation
system for walkers. Four prototypes have been developed classified according to
the userâs guidance requirements, the user type (based on spatial skills), and overall
system complexity. Haptic Transit is a notification system that provides spatial information
to the users of public transport. In all these systems, haptic feedback is used
to convey information about location, orientation, density and distance by use of the
vibration alarm with varying frequencies and patterns to help understand the physical
environment. Trials elicited positive responses from the users who see benefit in being
provided with a âheads upâ approach to mobile navigation. Results from a memory recall
test show that the users of haptic feedback for navigation had better memory recall
of the region traversed than the users of landmark images. Haptics integrated into a
multi-modal navigation system provides more usable, less distracting but more effective
interaction than conventional systems. Enhancements to the current work could include
integration of contextual information, detailed large-scale user trials and the exploration
of using haptics within confined indoor spaces
A Survey on Human-aware Robot Navigation
Intelligent systems are increasingly part of our everyday lives and have been
integrated seamlessly to the point where it is difficult to imagine a world
without them. Physical manifestations of those systems on the other hand, in
the form of embodied agents or robots, have so far been used only for specific
applications and are often limited to functional roles (e.g. in the industry,
entertainment and military fields). Given the current growth and innovation in
the research communities concerned with the topics of robot navigation,
human-robot-interaction and human activity recognition, it seems like this
might soon change. Robots are increasingly easy to obtain and use and the
acceptance of them in general is growing. However, the design of a socially
compliant robot that can function as a companion needs to take various areas of
research into account. This paper is concerned with the navigation aspect of a
socially-compliant robot and provides a survey of existing solutions for the
relevant areas of research as well as an outlook on possible future directions.Comment: Robotics and Autonomous Systems, 202
INTELLIGENTE TRANSPORT SYSTEMEN ITS EN VERKEERSVEILIGHEID
This report discusses Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS). This generic term is used for a broad range of information-, control- and electronic technology that can be integrated in the road infrastructure and the vehicles themselves, saving lives, time and money bymonitoring and managing traffic flows, reducing conges-tion, avoiding accidents, etc.
Because this report was written in the scope of the Policy Research Centre Mobility & Public Works, track Traffic Safety, it focuses on ITS systems from the traffic safety point of view.
Within the whole range of ITS systems, two categories can be distinguished: autonomous and cooperative systems. Autonomous systems are all forms of ITS which operate by itself, and do not depend on the cooperation with other vehicles or supporting
infrastructure. Example applications are blind spot detection using radar, electronic stability control, dynamic traffic management using variable road signs, emergency call, etc. Cooperative systems are ITS systems based on communication and cooperation, both between vehicles as between vehicles and infrastructure. Example applications are alerting vehicles approaching a traffic jam, exchanging data regarding hazardous road conditions, extended electronic brake light, etc. In some cases, autonomous systems can evolve to autonomous cooperative systems. ISA (Intelligent Speed Adaptation) is an
example of this: the dynamic aspect as well as communication with infrastructure (eg Traffic lights, Variable Message Sign (VMS)...) can provide additional road safety. This is the clear link between the two parts of this report.
The many ITS applications are an indicator of the high expectations from the government, the academic world and the industry regarding the possibilities made possible by both categories of ITS systems. Therefore, the comprehensive discussion of both of them is the core of this report.
The first part of the report covering the autonomous systems treats two aspects:
1. Overview of European projects related to mobility and in particular to road safety
2. Overview for guidelines for the evaluation of ITS projects.
Out of the wide range of diverse (autonomous) ITS applications a selection is made; this selection is focused on E Safety Forum and PreVENT. Especially the PreVent research project is interesting because ITS-applications have led to a number of concrete demonstration vehicles that showed - in protected and
unprotected surroundings- that these ITS-applications are already technically useful or could be developed into useful products.
The component âguidelines for the evaluation of ITS projectsâ outlines that the government has to have specific evaluation tools if the government has the ambition of using ITS-applications for road safety.
Two projects -guidelines for the evaluation of ITS projects- are examined; a third evaluation method is only mentioned because this description shows that a specific targeting of the government can be desirable :
1. TRACE describes the guidelines for the evaluation of ITS projects which are useful for the evaluation of specific ITS-applications.
2. FITS contains Finnish guidelines for the evaluation of ITS project; FIS is an adaptation of methods used for evaluation of transport projects.
3. The third evaluation method for the evaluation of ITS projects is developed in an ongoing European research project, eImpact. eImpact is important because, a specific consultation of stake holders shows that the social importance of some techniques is underestimated. These preliminary results show that an appropriate guiding role for the government could be important.
In the second part of this document the cooperative systems are discussed in depth.
These systems enable a large number of applications with an important social relevance, both on the level of the environment, mobility and traffic safety. Cooperative systems make it possible to warn drivers in time to avoid collisions (e.g. when approaching the tail of a traffic jam, or when a ghost driver is detected). Hazardous road conditions can be automatically communicated to other drivers (e.g. after the detection of black ice or an oil trail by the ESP). Navigation systems can receive detailed real-time up-dates about the current traffic situation and can take this into account when calculating their routes.
When a traffic distortion occurs, traffic centers can immediately take action and can actively influence the way that the traffic will be diverted. Drivers can be notified well in advance about approaching emergency vehicles, and can be directed to yield way in a uniform manner. This is just a small selection from the large number of applications that are made possible because of cooperative ITS systems, but it is very obvious that these
systems can make a significant positive contribution to traffic safety. In literature it is estimated that the decrease of accidents with injuries of fatalities will be between 20% and 50% .
It is not suprising that ITS systems receive a lot of attention for the moment. On an international level, a number of standards are being established regarding this topic. The International Telecommunications Uniont (ITU), Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), International Organization for Standardization (ISO), Association of Radio Industries and Business (ARIB) and European committee for standardization (CEN) are currently defining standards that describe different aspects of ITS systems. One of the names that is mostly mentioned in literature is the ISO TC204/WG16 Communications Architecture for Land Mobile environment (CALM) standard. It describes a framework that enables transparent (both for the application and the user) continuous communication through different communication media.
Besides the innumerable standardization activities, there is a great number of active research projects. On European level, the most important are the i2010 Intelligent Car Initiative, the eSafety Forum, and the COMeSafety, the CVIS, the SAFESPOT, the
COOPERS and the SEVECOM project. The i2010 Intelligent Car Initiative is an European initiative with the goal to halve the number of traffic casualties by 2010. The eSafety Forum is an initiative of the European Commission, industry and other stakeholders and targets the acceleration of development and deployment of safety-related ITS systems.
The COMeSafety project supports the eSafety Forum on the field of vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communication. In the CVIS project, attention is given to both technical and non-technical issues, with the main goal to develop the first free and
open reference implementation of the CALM architecture. The SAFEST project investigates which data is important for safety applications, and with which algorithmsthis data can be extracted from vehicles and infrastructure. The COOPERS project mainly
targets communication between vehicles and dedicated roadside infrastructure. Finally, the SEVECOM project researches security and privacy issues. Besides the European projects, research is also conducted in the United States of America (CICAS and VII
projects) and in Japan (AHSRA, VICS, Smartway, internetITS).
Besides standardization bodies and governmental organizations, also the industry has a considerable interest in ITS systems. In the scope of their ITS activities, a number of companies are united in national and international organizations. On an international level, the best known names are the Car 2 Car Communication Consortium, and Ertico.
The C2C CC unites the large European car manufacturers, and focuses on the development of an open standard for vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communications based on the already well established IEEE 802.11 WLAN standard.
Ertico is an European multi-sector, public/private partnership with the intended purpose of the development and introduction of ITS systems. On a national level, FlandersDrive and The Telematics Cluster / ITS Belgium are the best known organizations.
Despite the worldwide activities regarding (cooperative) ITS systems, there still is no consensus about the wireless technology to be used in such systems. This can be put down to the fact that a large number of suitable technologies exist or are under
development. Each technology has its specific advantages and disadvantages, but no single technology is the ideal solution for every ITS application. However, the different candidates can be classified in three distinct categories. The first group contains solutions for Dedicated Short Range Communication (DSRC), such as the WAVE technology. The second group is made up of several cellular communication networks providing coverage over wide areas. Examples are GPRS (data communication using the GSM network), UMTS (faster then GPRS), WiMAX (even faster then UMTS) and MBWA (similar to WiMAX). The third group consists of digital data broadcast technologies such as RDS (via the current FM radio transmissions, slow), DAB and DMB (via current digital radio transmissions, quicker) and DVB-H (via future digital television transmissions for mobiledevices, quickest).
The previous makes it clear that ITS systems are a hot topic right now, and they receive a lot of attention from the academic world, the standardization bodies and the industry.
Therefore, it seems like that it is just a matter of time before ITS systems will find their way into the daily live. Due to the large number of suitable technologies for the implementation of cooperative ITS systems, it is very hard to define which role the
government has to play in these developments, and which are the next steps to take.
These issues were addressed in reports produced by the i2010 Intelligent Car Initiative and the CVIS project. Their state of the art overview revealed that until now, no country has successfully deployed a fully operational ITS system yet. Seven EU countries are the furthest and are already in the deployment phase: Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Finland, Spain and France. These countries are trailed by eight countries which are in the promotion phase: Denmark, Greece, Italy, Austria, Belgium,Norway, the Czech Republic and Poland. Finally, the last ten countries find themselves in the start-up phase: Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Slovenia, Slovakia, Hungary, Portugal,
Switzerland, Ireland and Luxembourg.
These European reports produced by the i2010 Intelligent Car Initiative and the CVIS project have defined a few policy recommendations which are very relevant for the Belgian and Flemish government. The most important recommendations for the Flemish government are:
âą Support awareness: research revealed that civilians consider ITS applications useful, but they are not really willing to pay for this technology. Therefore, it is important to convince the general public of the usefulness and the importance of ITS systems.
âą Fill the gaps: Belgium is situated in the promotion phase. This means that it should focus at identifying the missing stakeholders, and coordinating national and regional ITS activities. Here it is important that the research activities are coordinated in a national and international context to allow transfer of knowledge from one study to the next, as well as the results to be comparable.
âą Develop a vision: in the scope of ITS systems policies have to be defined regarding a large number of issues. For instance there is the question if ITS users should be educated, meaning that the use of ITS systems should be the subject of the drivers license exam. How will the regulations be for the technical inspection
of vehicles equipped with ITS technology? Will ITS systems be deployed on a voluntary base, or will they e.g. be obliged in every new car? Will the services be offered by private companies, by the public authorities, or by a combination of them? Which technology will be used to implement ITS systems? These are just a few of the many questions where the government will have to develop a point of view for.
âą Policy coordination: ITS systems are a policy subject on an international, national and regional level. It is very important that these policy organizations can collaborate in a coordinated manner.
âą Iterative approach to policy development: developing policies for this complex matter is not a simple task. This asks for an iterative approach, where policy decisions are continuously refined and adjusted
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Interface design for a remote guidance system for the blind: Using dual-screen displays
This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.The mobility for the visually impaired people is one of the main challenges that researchers are still facing around the world. Although some projects have been conducted to improve the mobility of visually impaired people, further research is still needed. One of these projects is Brunel Remote Guidance System (BRGS). BRGS is aimed to assist visually impaired users in avoiding obstacles and reaching their destinations safely by providing online instructions via a remote sighted guide.
This study comes as continuation of the development process of BRGS; the main aim that has been achieved of this research is the optimisation of the interface design for the system guide terminal. This helps the sighted guide to assist the VIUs to avoid obstacles safely and comfortably in the micro-navigation, as well as to keep them on the right track to reach their destination in the macro-navigation. After using the content analysis, the performance factors and their assessments method were identified in each BRGSâ element, which concluded that there is a lack of research on the guide terminal setup and the assessment method for the sighted guide performance. Furthermore, there are no model to assist the sighted guide performance and two-screen displays used in the literature review and similar projects. A model was designed as a platform to conduct the evaluation on sighted guide performance. Based on this model, the computer-based simulation was established and tested, which made the simulation is ready for next task; the evaluation of the sighted guide performance. The conducted study determined the effects of the two-screen displays on the recognition performance of the 80 participants in the guide terminal. The performance was measured with the context of four different resolution conditions. The study was based on a simulation technique, which is consisted of two key performance elements in order to examine the sighted guide performance; the macro-navigation element and the micro-navigation element. The results show that the two-screen displays have an effect on the performance of the sighted guide. The optimum setup for the two-screen displays for the guide terminal consisted of a big digital map screen display (4CIF [704p x 576p]) and a small video image screen display (CIF [352p x 288p]), which one of the four different resolutions. This interface design has been recommended as a final setup in the guide terminal
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Review of substitutive assistive tools and technologies for people with visual impairments: recent advancements and prospects
YesThe development of many tools and technologies for people with visual impairment has become a major priority in the
field of assistive technology research. However, many of these technology advancements have limitations in terms of the
human aspects of the user experience (e.g., usability, learnability, and time to user adaptation) as well as difficulties in
translating research prototypes into production. Also, there was no clear distinction between the assistive aids of adults
and children, as well as between âpartial impairmentâ and âtotal blindnessâ. As a result of these limitations, the produced
aids have not gained much popularity and the intended users are still hesitant to utilise them. This paper presents a comprehensive review of substitutive interventions that aid in adapting to vision loss, centred on laboratory research studies
to assess user-system interaction and system validation. Depending on the primary cueing feedback signal offered to the
user, these technology aids are categorized as visual, haptics, or auditory-based aids. The context of use, cueing feedback
signals, and participation of visually impaired people in the evaluation are all considered while discussing these aids.
Based on the findings, a set of recommendations is suggested to assist the scientific community in addressing persisting
challenges and restrictions faced by both the totally blind and partially sighted people
Ortsbezogene Anwendungen und Dienste: 9. FachgesprÀch der GI/ITG-Fachgruppe Kommunikation und Verteilte Systeme ; 13. & 14. September 2012
Der Aufenthaltsort eines mobilen Benutzers stellt eine wichtige Information fĂŒr Anwendungen aus den Bereichen Mobile Computing, Wearable Computing oder Ubiquitous Computing dar. Ist ein mobiles EndgerĂ€t in der Lage, die aktuelle Position des Benutzers zu bestimmen, kann diese Information von der Anwendung berĂŒcksichtigt werden -- man spricht dabei allgemein von ortsbezogenen Anwendungen. Eng verknĂŒpft mit dem Begriff der ortsbezogenen Anwendung ist der Begriff des ortsbezogenen Dienstes. Hierbei handelt es sich beispielsweise um einen Dienst, der Informationen ĂŒber den aktuellen Standort ĂŒbermittelt. Mittlerweile werden solche Dienste kommerziell eingesetzt und erlauben etwa, dass ein Reisender ein Hotel, eine Tankstelle oder eine Apotheke in der nĂ€heren Umgebung findet. Man erwartet, nicht zuletzt durch die EinfĂŒhrung von LTE, ein groĂes Potenzial ortsbezogener Anwendungen fĂŒr die Zukunft.
Das jÀhrlich stattfindende FachgesprÀch "Ortsbezogene Anwendungen und Dienste" der GI/ITG-Fachgruppe Kommunikation und Verteilte Systeme hat sich zum Ziel gesetzt, aktuelle Entwicklungen dieses Fachgebiets in einem breiten Teilnehmerkreis aus Industrie und Wissenschaft zu diskutieren. Der vorliegende Konferenzband fasst die Ergebnisse des neunten FachgesprÀchs zusammen.The location of a mobile user poses an important information for applications in the scope of Mobile Computung, Wearable Computing and Ubiquitous Computing. If a mobile device is able to determine the current location of its user, this information may be taken into account by an application. Such applications are called a location-based applications. Closely related to location-based applications are location-based services, which for example provides the user informations about his current location. Meanwhile such services are deployed commercially and enable travelers for example to find a hotel, a petrol station or a pharmacy in his vicinity. It is expected, not least because of the introduction of LTE, a great potential of locations-based applications in the future.
The annual technical meeting "Location-based Applications and Services" of the GI/ITG specialized group "Communication and Dsitributed Systems" targets to discuss current evolutions in a broad group of participants assembling of industrial representatives and scientists. The present proceedings summarizes the result of the 9th annual meeting
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