IoT Raspberry Pi Based Smart Parking System with Weighted K-Nearest Neighbours Approach

Due to the limited availability of parking slots in parking areas, drivers often have difficulty finding an empty parking slot. The number of parking slots available at a particular location is usually less than the number of vehicles. Hence, drivers spend a lot of time looking for vacant parking slots, which eventually delays the completion of their tasks, such as paying bills, attending a meeting, or visiting a patient at the hospital, etc. There are a couple of parking guidance systems that have been highlighted by the other researchers, but most of them lack real-time, convenient guidance. This research proposed a smart parking guidance system made of an IoT Raspberry Pi combined with an Android application that makes use of the weighted k nearest neighbours for positioning the vehicle. This was achieved through the use of Wi-Fi signal strength indicator fingerprinting, allowing for real-time navigation and parking detection. In order to achieve real-time parking over the internet, Raspberry Pi hardware and the ThingSpeak IoT cloud with ultrasonic sensors are used in the proposed method. An Android application was involved in this parking detection system, which adopted IoT approaches to estimate the location of users in real-time and provide routes using route-finding techniques to assist drivers in finding their desired parking slots. Data from the sensors was processed and translated into the Raspberry Pi using the Python programming language. They were sent using the Message Telemetry Transport protocol to send parking data to the ThingSpeak IoT cloud in real-time. This data was displayed via the Android app. The user is then able to view each available parking slot, acquire the route, and be directed with high accuracy to the parking slots of their choice. In this study, advanced sensing and communication technologies were used together with the weighted k nearest neighbours algorithm for positioning and wayfinding in order to improve parking guidance accuracy. Based on the experimental results, the proposed system showed a lower average error rate of 1.5 metres in comparison to other positioning techniques, such as GPS, or other similar algorithms for positioning, such as maximum a posteriori, which have shown average errors of 2.3 metres and 3.55 metres, respectively, a potential increase of more than 35% from the previous error rate. Doi: 10.28991/CEJ-2023-09-08-012 Full Text: PD

Exploring Hybrid Indoor Positioning Systems

Ubiquitous applications collect contextual information, process it, and then use this derived data to deliver valuable services. Location is one these contexts, and has been significant in providing navigation and guidance services for GPS devices. However, GPS is designed for outdoor use and is not precise enough, in terms of location accuracy for indoor applications. There are many indoor location systems that rely on a single technology, but these systems are either inaccurate in uncontrolled environments or require the installation of a dedicated infrastructure. This has led to the investigation of hybrid systems. This thesis examines the creation of a hybrid indoor positioning system combining different tech­ nologies and techniques; Wi-Fi access points and their associated signal strength, image analysis using machine learning to create location specific scene classifiers, and an altimeter sensor to determine the user\u27s current floor. This system is meant to provide indoor positioning data to location-aware applications

Evaluating Wi-Fi indoor positioning approaches in a real world environment

Internship Report presented as the partial requirement for obtaining a Master's degree in Data Science and Advanced AnalyticsGlobal positioning system(GPS) does not provide generally a good positioning performance in an indoor location because of many reasons (Henniges, 2012). On the other hand, other alternatives such as the WI-FI technology has become recently in a popular use to provide indoor localization. And that is due to many reasons, such as the wide spread of WI-FI infrastructure in the indoor environments and the low cost of this technology. This study attempts to evaluate different WI-FI indoor positioning approaches in a real world environment. In particular, in retail stores and shopping malls. The pros and cons of each one of these approaches are pointed out. The main purpose of this study from the company perspective is to explore the state of the art methods and the cutting edge technologies of the WI-FI IPS and to come up with an improvement of their indoor localization system. This system forms the core of the company`s retail-analytics product that uses a Wi-Fi positioning technology to provide indoor location based services for the customers and helps retailers to better understanding their businesses

Indoor navigation for the visually impaired : enhancements through utilisation of the Internet of Things and deep learning

Wayfinding and navigation are essential aspects of independent living that heavily rely on the sense of vision. Walking in a complex building requires knowing exact location to find a suitable path to the desired destination, avoiding obstacles and monitoring orientation and movement along the route. People who do not have access to sight-dependent information, such as that provided by signage, maps and environmental cues, can encounter challenges in achieving these tasks independently. They can rely on assistance from others or maintain their independence by using assistive technologies and the resources provided by smart environments. Several solutions have adapted technological innovations to combat navigation in an indoor environment over the last few years. However, there remains a significant lack of a complete solution to aid the navigation requirements of visually impaired (VI) people. The use of a single technology cannot provide a solution to fulfil all the navigation difficulties faced. A hybrid solution using Internet of Things (IoT) devices and deep learning techniques to discern the patterns of an indoor environment may help VI people gain confidence to travel independently. This thesis aims to improve the independence and enhance the journey of VI people in an indoor setting with the proposed framework, using a smartphone. The thesis proposes a novel framework, Indoor-Nav, to provide a VI-friendly path to avoid obstacles and predict the user s position. The components include Ortho-PATH, Blue Dot for VI People (BVIP), and a deep learning-based indoor positioning model. The work establishes a novel collision-free pathfinding algorithm, Orth-PATH, to generate a VI-friendly path via sensing a grid-based indoor space. Further, to ensure correct movement, with the use of beacons and a smartphone, BVIP monitors the movements and relative position of the moving user. In dark areas without external devices, the research tests the feasibility of using sensory information from a smartphone with a pre-trained regression-based deep learning model to predict the user s absolute position. The work accomplishes a diverse range of simulations and experiments to confirm the performance and effectiveness of the proposed framework and its components. The results show that Indoor-Nav is the first type of pathfinding algorithm to provide a novel path to reflect the needs of VI people. The approach designs a path alongside walls, avoiding obstacles, and this research benchmarks the approach with other popular pathfinding algorithms. Further, this research develops a smartphone-based application to test the trajectories of a moving user in an indoor environment

Understanding collaborative workspaces:spatial affordances & time constraints

Abstract. This thesis presents a generic solution for indoor positioning and movement monitoring, positioning data collection and analysis with the aim of improving the interior design of collaborative workspaces. Since the nature of the work and the work attitude of employees varies in different workspaces, no general workspace layout can be applied to all situations. Tailoring workspaces according to the exact needs and requirements of the employees can improve collaboration and productivity. Here, an indoor positioning system based on Bluetooth Low Energy technology was designed and implemented in a pilot area (an IT company), and the position of the employees was monitored during a two months period. The pilot area consisted of an open workplace with workstations for nine employees and two sets of coffee tables, four meeting rooms, two coffee rooms and a soundproof phone booth. Thirteen remixes (BLE signal receivers) provided full coverage over the pilot area, while light durable BLE beacons, which were carried by employees acted as BLE signal broadcasters. The RSSIs of the broadcasted signals from the beacons were recorded by each remix within the range of the signal and the gathered data was stored in a database. The gathered RSSI data was normalized to decrease the effect of workspace obstacles on the signal strength. To predict the position of beacons based on the recorded RSSIs, a few approaches were tested, and the most accurate one was chosen, which provided an above 95% accuracy in predicting the position of each beacon every 3 minutes. This approach was a combination of fingerprinting with a Machine Learning-based Random Forest Classifier. The obtained position results were then used to extract various information about the usage pattern of different workspace areas to accurately access the current layout and the needs of the employees

Location-based Data Analysis of Visitor Structure for Recreational Area Management

This work presents a location-based data analysis framework for profiling visitors structures. In terms of recreational area management, understanding visitors’ structure and popularity is important. Traditionally, visitors monitoring with automatic counting devices has drawbacks of inaccurate visitors counting. In this work, compared to automatic counting devices, we use Wi-Fi tracking as the main method to count visitors, which provides a fairly precise picture of visitor structures. Moreover, we deliver rich analytic functions in this framework and we present the functionality with visitor data collected from Guanyinshan Visitor Center. This framework not only standardizes visitor counting process but also facilitates a profound analysis of visitor structures. Key Words: Guanyinshan Visitor Center, Wi-Fi trackin

Comparative analysis of computer-vision and BLE technology based indoor navigation systems for people with visual impairments

Background: Considerable number of indoor navigation systems has been proposed to augment people with visual impairments (VI) about their surroundings. These systems leverage several technologies, such as computer-vision, Bluetooth low energy (BLE), and other techniques to estimate the position of a user in indoor areas. Computer-vision based systems use several techniques including matching pictures, classifying captured images, recognizing visual objects or visual markers. BLE based system utilizes BLE beacons attached in the indoor areas as the source of the radio frequency signal to localize the position of the user. Methods: In this paper, we examine the performance and usability of two computer-vision based systems and BLE-based system. The first system is computer-vision based system, called CamNav that uses a trained deep learning model to recognize locations, and the second system, called QRNav, that utilizes visual markers (QR codes) to determine locations. A field test with 10 blindfolded users has been conducted while using the three navigation systems. Results: The obtained results from navigation experiment and feedback from blindfolded users show that QRNav and CamNav system is more efficient than BLE based system in terms of accuracy and usability. The error occurred in BLE based application is more than 30% compared to computer vision based systems including CamNav and QRNav. Conclusions: The developed navigation systems are able to provide reliable assistance for the participants during real time experiments. Some of the participants took minimal external assistance while moving through the junctions in the corridor areas. Computer vision technology demonstrated its superiority over BLE technology in assistive systems for people with visual impairments. - 2019 The Author(s).Scopu

Exploring Potentials in Mobile Phone GPS Data Collection and Analysis

In order to support efficient transportation planning decisions, household travel survey data with high levels of accuracy are essential. Due to a number of issues associated with conventional household travel surveys, including high cost, low response rate, trip misreporting, and respondents’ self-reporting bias, government and private agencies are desperately searching for alternative data collection methods. Recent advancements in smart phones and Global Positioning System (GPS) technologies present new opportunities to track travelers’ trips. Considering the high penetration rate of smartphones, it seems reasonable to use smartphone data as a reliable source of individual travel diary. Many studies have applied GPS-Based data in planning and demand analysis but mobile phone GPS data has not received much attention. The Google Location History (GLH) data provide an opportunity to explore the potential of these data. This research presents a study using GLH data, including the data processing algorithm in deriving travel information and the potential applications in understanding travel patterns. The main goal of this study is to explore the potential of using cell phone GPS data to advance the understanding in mobility and travel behavior. The objectives of the study include: a) assessing the technical feasibility of using smartphones in transportation planning as a substitute of traditional household survey b) develop algorithms and procedures to derive travel information from smartphones; and c) identify applications in mobility and travel behavior studies that could take advantage of these smartphones GPS data, which would not have been possible with conventional data collection methods. This research aims to demonstrate how accurate travel information can be collected and analyzed with lower cost using smartphone GPS data and what analysis applications can be made possible with this new data source. Moreover, the framework developed in this study can provide valuable insights for others who are interested in using cell phone data. GLH data are obtained from 45 participants in a two-month period for the study. The results show great promise of using GLH data as a supplement or complement to conventional travel diary data. It shows that GLH provides sufficient high resolution data that can be used to study people’s movement without respondent burden, and potentially it can be applied to a large scale study easily. The developed algorithms in this study work well with the data. This study supports that transportation data can be collected with smartphones less expensively and more accurately than by traditional household travel survey. These data provide the opportunity to facilitate the investigation of various issues, such as less frequent long-distance travel, hourly variations in travel behavior, and daily variations in travel behavior