NAVIO ? A Navigation and Guidance Service for Pedestrians

Abstract

In the research project NAVIO (Pedestrian Navigation Systems in Combined Indoor/Outdoor Environements) at our University we are working on the improvement of navigation services for pedestrians. Thereby we are mainly 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. Specifications will allow us to select appropriate sensor data and to integrate data when and where needed, to propose context-dependent routes fitting to partly conflicting interests and goals as well as to select appropriate communication methods in terms of supporting the user guidance by various multimedia cartography forms. These taks are addressed in the project in three different work packages, i.e., the first on “Integrated positioning”, the second on “Pedestrian route modeling” and the third on “Multimedia route communication”. In this paper we will concentrate on the research work and findings in the first work package. For continuous positioning of a pedestrian suitable location technologies include GNSS and indoor location techniques, cellular phone positioning, dead reckoning sensors (e.g. magnetic compass, gyro and accelerometers) for measurement of heading and travelled distance as well as barometric pressure sensors for height determination. The integration of these sensors in a modern multi-sensor system can be performed using an adapted Kalman filter. To test and to demonstrate our approach, we take a use case scenario into account, i.e., the guidance of visitors to departments of the Vienna University of Technology. The results of simulation studies and practical tests could confirm that such a service can achieve a high level of performance for the guidance of a pedestrian in urban areas and mixed indoor and outdoor environments.