Achieving Practical and Accurate Indoor Navigation for People with Visual Impairments

Methods that provide accurate navigation assistance to people with visual impairments often rely on instrumenting the environment with specialized hardware infrastructure. In particular, approaches that use sensor networks of Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons have been shown to achieve precise localization and accurate guidance while the structural modifications to the environment are kept at minimum. To install navigation infrastructure, however, a number of complex and time-critical activities must be performed. The BLE beacons need to be positioned correctly and samples of Bluetooth signal need to be collected across the whole environment. These tasks are performed by trained personnel and entail costs proportional to the size of the environment that needs to be instrumented. To reduce the instrumentation costs while maintaining a high accuracy, we improve over a traditional regression-based localization approach by introducing a novel, graph-based localization method using Pedestrian Dead Reckoning (PDR) and particle filter. We then study how the number and density of beacons and Bluetooth samples impact the balance between localization accuracy and set-up cost of the navigation environment. Studies with users show the impact that the increased accuracy has on the usability of our navigation application for the visually impaired

Achieving Practical and Accurate Indoor Navigation for People with Visual Impairments

Methods that provide accurate navigation assistance to people with visual impairments often rely on instrumenting the environment with specialized hardware infrastructure. In particular, approaches that use sensor networks of Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons have been shown to achieve precise localization and accurate guidance while the structural modifications to the environment are kept at minimum. To install navigation infrastructure, however, a number of complex and time-critical activities must be performed. The BLE beacons need to be positioned correctly and samples of Bluetooth signal need to be collected across the whole environment. These tasks are performed by trained personnel and entail costs proportional to the size of the environment that needs to be instrumented. To reduce the instrumentation costs while maintaining a high accuracy, we improve over a traditional regression-based localization approach by introducing a novel, graph-based localization method using Pedestrian Dead Reckoning (PDR) and particle filter. We then study how the number and density of beacons and Bluetooth samples impact the balance between localization accuracy and set-up cost of the navigation environment. Studies with users show the impact that the increased accuracy has on the usability of our navigation application for the visually impaired

Real-Time High-Accuracy 2D Localization with Structured Patterns

Building over algorithms previously developed for digital pens, this article introduces a novel 2D localization technique for mobile robots, based on simple printed patterns. This method combines high absolute accuracy (below 0.3mm), unlimited scalability, low computational requirements (the presented open-source implementation runs at above 45Hz on a low-cost microcontroller) and low cost (below 30 Euros per device at prototype stage). The article first presents the underlying algorithms and localization pipeline. It then describes our reference hardware and software implementations, and finally evaluates the performance of this technique for mobile robots

Realtà aumentata per operazioni di manutenzione e servicing: uso di tag multipli per la registrazione automatica di impianti di grandi dimensioni

Il lavoro di tesi riassunto nel presente documento si inserisce nell'ampia tematica delle metodologie informatiche innovative di potenziale applicazione in ambito industriale. In particolare, si sono volute sperimentare e, dove possibile, affinare le potenzialità dei metodi tipici della Realtà Aumentata applicati alla tematica della manutenzione di macchinari complessi. Ci si è inoltre voluti riferire ad un caso industriale specifico, attraverso l'attiva collaborazione con un'azienda fortemente interessata alla tematica. In quest'ottica, l'obiettivo prefisso per questo lavoro di tesi era quello di investigare secondo quali modalità e con quali problematiche fosse possibile utilizzare tecniche di computer vision per sovra - imporre modelli CAD tridimensionali a macchinari di grandi dimensioni. Questi risultati sono possibili attraverso l'uso di tecniche adesso piuttosto consolidate in letteratura, ma la cui pratica applicazione dimostra in più occasioni il permanere di alcune inside e difficoltà operative pratiche che rappresentano di fatto una barriera al loro utilizzo fattivo. Nella presente si sono voluti investigare tali limiti, proponendo poi un approccio al problema che permettesse di superare alcuni di questi, ed in particolare di automatizzare una delle fasi più complesse e laboriose, l'instrumentazione del macchinario, ovvero la pratica necessaria a far si che posizione e orientamento di un macchinario complesso inquadrato da una telecamera sia conosciuta dal calcolatore, in maniera da poter sovraimporre ad esso il modello CAD corrispondente

Geometry model for marker-based localisation

This work presents a novel approach for position estimation from monocularvision. It has been shown that vision systems have great capability in reaching precise and accurate measurements and are becoming the state-of-the-art innavigation. Navigation systems have only been integrated in commercial mobile robots since the early 2000s, and yet localisation in a dynamic environmentthat form the main building block of navigation, has no truly elegant solution.Solutions are many and their strategies and methods differ depending on theapplication. For the lack of a single accurate procedure, methods are combinedwhich make use of different sensors fusion. This thesis focus on the use of monocular vision sensor to develop an accurate Marker-Based positioning system thatcan be used in various applications in outdoor, in agriculture for example, andin other indoor applications. Many contributions arouse here in this context. Amain contribution is in perspective distortion correction in which distortions aremodeled in all its forms with correction process. This is essential when dealingwith measurements and shapes in images. Because of the lack of robustness indepth sensing using monocular vision-based system, a second contribution is inthe novel spherical marker-based approach position captured, which is designedand developed within the concept of relative pose estimation. In this Model-Basedposition estimation, relative position can be extracted instantaneously withoutthe need of prior knowledge of the previous state of the camera, as it relies onmonocular image. This model can as well compensate for the lack of knowledge inthe scale of the real world, for example in the case of Monocular Visual Simultaneous Localisation and Mapping (VSLAM). In addition to these contributions, someexperimental and simulation evidence presented in this work has shown feasibilityof the reading measurements like distance capture and relative pose between themarker-based model and the observer, with reliability and high accuracy. Thesystem has shown the ability to track accurately the object at a farthest possibleposition from low resolution digital images and from a single viewpoint. Whilethe main application field targeted is tracking mobile-robots, other applicationscan profit from this concept like motion capture and application related to thefield of topography

Тhe benefits of an additional practice in descriptive geometry course: non obligatory workshop at the Faculty of civil engineering in Belgrade

At the Faculty of Civil Engineering in Belgrade, in the Descriptive geometry (DG) course, non-obligatory workshops named “facultative task” are held for the three generations of freshman students with the aim to give students the opportunity to get higher final grade on the exam. The content of this workshop was a creative task, performed by a group of three students, offering free choice of a topic, i.e. the geometric structure associated with some real or imagery architectural/art-work object. After the workshops a questionnaire (composed by the professors at the course) is given to the students, in order to get their response on teaching/learning materials for the DG course and the workshop. During the workshop students performed one of the common tests for testing spatial abilities, named “paper folding". Based on the results of the questionnairethe investigation of the linkages between:students’ final achievements and spatial abilities, as well as students’ expectations of their performance on the exam, and how the students’ capacity to correctly estimate their grades were associated with expected and final grades, is provided. The goal was to give an evidence that a creative work, performed by a small group of students and self-assessment of their performances are a good way of helping students to maintain motivation and to accomplish their achievement. The final conclusion is addressed to the benefits of additional workshops employment in the course, which confirmhigherfinal scores-grades, achievement of creative results (facultative tasks) and confirmation of DG knowledge adaption

The contemporary visualization and modelling technologies and techniques for the design of the green roofs

The contemporary design solutions are merging the boundaries between real and virtual world. The Landscape architecture like the other interdisciplinary field stepped in a contemporary technologies area focused on that, beside the good execution of works, designer solutions has to be more realistic and “touchable”. The opportunities provided by Virtual Reality are certainly not negligible, it is common knowledge that the designs in the world are already presented in this way so the Virtual Reality increasingly used. Following the example of the application of virtual reality in landscape architecture, this paper deals with proposals for the use of virtual reality in landscape architecture so that designers, clients and users would have a virtual sense of scope e.g. rooftop garden, urban areas, parks, roads, etc. It is a programming language that creates a series of images creating a whole, so certain parts can be controlled or even modified in VR. Virtual reality today requires a specific gadget, such as Occulus, HTC Vive, Samsung Gear VR and similar. The aim of this paper is to acquire new theoretical and practical knowledge in the interdisciplinary field of virtual reality, the ability to display using virtual reality methods, and to present through a brief overview the plant species used in the design and construction of an intensive roof garden in a Mediterranean climate, the basic characteristics of roofing gardens as well as the benefits they carry. Virtual and augmented reality as technology is a very powerful tool for landscape architects, when modeling roof gardens, parks, and urban areas. One of the most popular technologies used by landscape architects is Google Tilt Brush, which enables fast modeling. The Google Tilt Brush VR app allows modeling in three-dimensional virtual space using a palette to work with the use of a three-dimensional brush. The terms of two "programmed" realities - virtual reality and augmented reality - are often confused. One thing they have in common, though, is VRML - Virtual Reality Modeling Language. In this paper are shown the ways on which this issue can be solved and by the way, get closer the term of Virtual Reality (VR), also all the opportunities which the Virtual reality offered us. As well, in this paper are shown the conditions of Mediterranean climate, the conceptual solution and the plant species which will be used by execution of intensive green roof on the motel “Marković”