User's Walking Research Articles

An Architecture for Mobile Outdoors Augmented Reality for Cultural Heritage

In this paper, we present the software architecture of a complete mobile tourist guide for cultural heritage sites located in the old town of Chania, Crete, Greece. This includes gamified components that motivate the user to traverse the suggested interest points, as well as technically challenging outdoors augmented reality (AR) visualization features. The main focus of the AR feature is to superimpose 3D models of historical buildings in their past state onto the real world, while users walk around the Venetian part of Chania’s city, exploring historical information in the form of text and images. We examined and tested registration and tracking mechanisms based on commercial AR frameworks in the challenging outdoor, sunny environment of a Mediterranean town, addressing relevant technical challenges. Upon visiting one of three significant monuments, a 3D model displaying the monument in its past state is visualized onto the mobile phone’s screen at the exact location of the real-world monument, while the user is exploring the area. A location-based experience was designed and integrated into the application, enveloping the 3D model with real-world information at the same time. The users are urged to explore interest areas and unlock historical information, while earning points following a gamified experience. By combining AR technologies with location-aware and gamified elements, we aim to promote the technologically enhanced public appreciation of cultural heritage sites and showcase the cultural depth of the city of Chania.

The effects of socio-demographic factors on physical activity in gated and non-gated neighbourhoods in Karachi, Pakistan

Physical activity (PA) is important in ensuring a healthy population. It is dependent on various socio-demographic (SD) factors, such as age, gender, employment and marital status. A limited number of studies have investigated the relationship between SD factors and PA but research exploring this relationship from the perspective of gated and non-gated neighbourhoods is scarcer. Therefore, the objective of this study is to investigate the relationship between SD factors and PA variables in gated and nongated neighbourhoods in Karachi Pakistan. Results of the independent sample t-test and Pearson chi-square showed that young and single people do more sports activities in gated neighbourhoods. Women, unemployed people and public transport users walk more in non-gated neighbourhoods. In conclusion, future neighbourhoods should have more pedestrian friendly areas and a larger number of PA facilities, rather than building more walls and gates.

Making the usage of guidance systems in pedestrian infrastructures measurable using the virtual environment DAVE

This paper presents the development and partial validation of a cave automatic virtual environment (CAVE), which is designed to make the reactions of pedestrians to guidance information (even such that are not technically feasible with current technology) in pedestrian infrastructures (such as airports, train stations or subway stations) measurable. The navigation is designed to be intuitive and easy to learn. It uses the Microsoft Kinect to obtain information on the user’s movement. The user walks in place to move forward in the virtual world and turns her shoulders to invoke rotations in the virtual world to make turns. The virtual world includes simulated pedestrians to enhance the immersion and is equipped with a number of sensors that allow for a multi-method measuring of users. After the implementation of hands free steering two case studies are used to provide first evidence with respect to the possible answers that the research infrastructure is capable of delivering. The validity of the model for steering has been explored using a case study involving parallel test groups that expose individuals to wayfinding exercises in both the real world and the corresponding virtual world. Our results show that the objective distances and times in the real and the virtual worlds, as well as perceptions of distances, times and directions, do not differ statistically significantly. This provides a partial validation of the model for steering. In a second larger case study the hypothesis was tested that using the virtual environment test persons are able to find their way also in complex multi-level infrastructures with only limited learning requirements. Additionally, we tested the hypothesis that also in this setting realistic paths (including elevator and escalator usage) are taken by the test persons while observing realistic average velocities over longer trips. We find that our hypotheses have not been rejected by the data. Therefore, this environment is a useful tool for the design of guiding systems for large pedestrian infrastructures.

Enabling Public Cameras to Talk to the Public

This paper asks: Is it possible for cameras in public areas, say ceiling cameras in a museum, to send personalized messages to people without knowing any addresses of their phones? We define this kind of problem as Private Human Addressing and develop a real-time end-to-end system called PHADE to solve it. Unlike traditional data transmission protocols that need to first learn the destination's address, our cameras rely on viewing user's motion patterns, and use the uniqueness of these patterns as the address for communication. Once receiving the wireless broadcast from the cameras, the user's phone can locally compare the "motion address" of the packet against its own motion sensor data, and accept the packet upon a "good" match. In addition to requiring no data from users, our system transforms the motion patterns into low-dimensional codes to prevent leakage of user's walking behaviors. Thus, a hacker who collects all the broadcast messages would still not be able to infer the motion patterns of users. Real-world experiments show that PHADE discriminates 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 people with 98%, 95%, 90%, 90%, 87% correctness and about 3 seconds constant delay. Since abundant and accurate information can be extracted from videos, PHADE would find applications in various contexts. Extended to localization system and audio guide, PHADE achieves a median error of 0.19m and 99.7% matching correctness, respectively. PHADE can also deliver messages based on human gestures. There is no need to deploy any extra infrastructures or to require users to rent any dedicated device.

DMP Assistant [Tool Review

The DMP (Data Management Plan) Assistant, hosted by the Portage Network, is a free tool designed to walk users through the creation of data management plans. As federal granting agencies in Canada are now expecting researchers to show evidence of data management planning, the DMP Assistant is both timely and useful. The template offered provides guidance based on current research data management best practices and are customizable based on institutional policies. While the DMP Assistant focuses on Canadian research needs, there are a number of similar tools developed from the same open-source platform that serve users around the globe. Though it does not currently offer current online tutorials or sample DMPs, the DMP Assistant is a simple and effective tool for engaging users in the research process.

Gait Kinematics and Energy Expenditure of Users Walking with Semiflexion Knee-Ankle-Foot Orthosis: A Pilot Study

ABSTRACT Introduction The knee joint of a conventional knee-ankle-foot orthosis (KAFO) is locked during walking. This study aims to evaluate the effects of stance phase knee flexion on the kinematics, spatiotemporal parameters, and energy consumption of KAFO users. Materials and Methods A retrofitting drop lock that allows 12° of stance flexion in a single-axis knee joint was developed (called the semiflexion knee joint). Four subjects with quadriceps weakness volunteered to participate in the study. Gait analysis was conducted for the locked knee and the semiflexion knee orthosis using a calibrated eight-camera three-dimensional motion capture system. Preceding each trial, participants were given 5 days of gait training with the corresponding KAFO. Subjective feedback about the performance of the new KAFO was collected. Results Walking with the semiflexion KAFO did not significantly improve the speed (p = 0.161), cadence (p = 0.232), and stride length (p = 0.95) compared with walking with a locked KAFO. Although not significant (p = 0.132), trends of Physiological Cost Index (PCI) seemed to reduce in all subjects while walking with the semiflexion knee. Conclusions Using the KAFO with stance flexion did not significantly improve any of the locked knee gait parameters. However, there was a trend of reduction in the PCI score while walking with the semiflexion KAFO, and it also improved the ease of doing some activities of daily living.

Effect of Walkability on Users Choice of “Walking” the Last Mile to Transit Stations: A Case of Delhi Metro

<em>There is growing recognition of the importance of Last Mile Connectivity (LMC) to mass transit systems. In the context of Delhi, albeit a shift can be seen in the provisioning of LMC, and despite previous studies indicating that more than 50% of metro rail users walk to and/or from metro stations, yet the seriousness with which pedestrian environment is woven into transit planning is lacking.</em><br /><em>The paper is based on an empirical study conducted by the author, of approximately 800 samples of metro users surveyed across seven stations of Delhi Metro, representing different station typologies, ridership and locational contexts. The paper focuses on the “walk” choice of users across a variety of factors related to their socio-economic strata, trip characteristics and station context. A parallel study is conducted to audit the pedestrian environment within one kilometre distance around each station. The paper further attempts to investigate whether pedestrian environment affects user choice of opting for “walk” as the last mile choice. It also ranks the performance of the case stations in terms of various attributes of walkability.</em><br /><em>In conclusion, the paper contends that overall walkability environment offered to transit commuters is crucial in the share of walk trips for last mile commute and the distance commuters are willing to walk. It recommends that walking as LMC choice needs to be promoted through enhanced user experience in absence of which a significant amount of last mile travel will happen through unsustainable mechanised modes.</em>

Dynamic performance of a suspended reinforced concrete footbridge under pedestrian movements

In the paper the dynamic analysis of a suspended reinforced concrete footbridge over a national road located in South Poland was carried out. Firstly, modes and values of natural frequencies of vibration of the structure were calculated. The results of the numerical modal investigation shown that the natural frequencies of the structure coincided with the frequency of human beings during motion steps (walking fast or running). Hence, to consider the comfort standards, the dynamic response of the footbridge to a runner dynamic motion should be calculated. Secondly, the dynamic response of the footbridge was calculated taking into consideration two models of dynamic forces produced by a single running pedestrian: a ‘sine’ and ‘half-sine’ model. It occurred that the values of accelerations and displacements obtained for the ‘half-sine’ model of dynamic forces were greater than those obtained for the ‘sine’ model up 20%. The ‘sine’ model is appropriate only for walking users of the walkways, because the nature of their motion has continues characteristic. In the case of running users of walkways this theory is unfitting, since the forces produced by a running pedestrian has a discontinuous nature. In this scenario of calculations, a ‘half-sine’ model seemed to be more effective. Finally, the comfort conditions for the footbridge were evaluated. The analysis proved that the vertical comfort criteria were not exceeded for a single user of footbridge running or walking fast.

Walking Direction Estimation for Gait Based Applications

Gait has become a popular trait for biometric person recognition/re-identification. This is due to its advantage of being captured without any subject cooperation. This made it suitable especially for video surveillance applications. However, the gait features obtained in such scenarios depends on the observed walking direction of the subject. In this paper, we deal with the problem related to walking direction estimation in unconstrained environments. Covariates factors (i.e. carrying different types of bag, clothing) affect considerably the accuracy of walking direction estimation problem. Therefore, we have proposed a solution which is suitable for both real time application and unconstrained environment where the user walking direction is different and affected by covariates factors. The discriminative power of this solution is verified through experiments. The performance of this method was evaluated on the CASIA-B database. Experimental results prove the effectiveness of our proposed walking direction estimation method.

Dead Reckoning in Structured Environments for Human Indoor Navigation

Provision for unrestricted movement by everybody, including disabled people, is among the basic aims of a Smart City. In this paper, we deal with human indoor navigation based on inertial sensors that are commonly found in devices, such as smartphones. The approach has gathered broad interest within the scientific community, since it does not require installation of external devices and allows the use of a smartphone both as measurement platform and user interface. Thus, it can be seen as an inclusive low-cost, low-energy human navigation aid. We focus this paper on the implementation of algorithms for estimating and tracking the heading direction of a user walking within a structured environment, e.g., a building. The main feature of the proposed method is that the estimation of direction is not referred to absolute headings based on the four cardinal directions, as usually done in the literature. To achieve sufficient reliability and, at the same time, preserve simplicity, our approach is based on detecting relative changes in the user direction with respect to a reference system obtained during an initial calibration phase. The fundamental direction, which exhibits the minimum distance with respect to the raw measured values, is then provided as output. Experimental results reported in this paper show that a user path can be traced with sufficient accuracy within four steps in the worst case.

Ortholeg 2.0 ‑ Design of a Transparent Active Orthosis

In this work we propose a conceptual solution for performance limitation observed in many lower limb active orthosis. The concept is called transparent orthosis, and its objective is to improve the user walking experience to a more natural level, through the design of a lightweight and ergonomic mechanical structure, while using an autonomous and interactive software architecture. The details of transparency are shown through the design and development of a real transparent orthosis, called Ortholeg 2.0. Some aspects of the presented concept were tested in a previous developed device, the Ortholeg orthosis.

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In this work, we propose a system that detects approaching cars for smartphone users. In addition to detecting the presence of a vehicle, it can also estimate the vehicle’s driving direction, as well as count the number of cars around the user. We achieve these goals by processing the acoustic signal captured by microphones embedded in the user’s mobile phone. The largest challenge we faced involved addressing the fact that vehicular noise is predominantly due to tire-road friction, and therefore lacked strong (frequency) formant or temporal structure. Additionally, outdoor environments have complex acoustic noise characteristics, which are made worse when the signal is captured by non-professional grade microphones embedded in smartphones. We address these challenges by monitoring a new feature: maximal frequency component that crosses a threshold. We extract this feature with a blurred edge detector. Through detailed experiments, we found our system to be robust across different vehicles and environmental conditions, and thereby support unsupervised car detection and counting. We evaluated our system using audio tracks recorded from seven different models of cars, including SUVs, medium-sized sedans, compact cars, and electric cars. We also tested our system with the user walking in various outdoor environments including parking lots, campus roads, residential areas, and shopping centers. Our results show that we can accurately and robustly detect cars with low CPU and memory requirements.

Femtocell Selection Scheme for Reducing Unnecessary Handover and Enhancing Downlink QoS in Cognitive Femtocell Networks

Femtocell networks have been proposed for indoor communications as the extension of cellular networks for enhancing coverage performance. Because femtocells have small coverage radius, typically from 15 to 30 meters, a femtocell user (FU) walking at low speed can still make several femtocell-to-femtocell handovers during its connection. When performing a femtocell-to-femtocell handover, femtocell selection used to select the target handover femtocell has to be able not only to reduce unnecessary handovers and but also to support FU’s quality of service (QoS). In the paper, we propose a femtocell selection scheme for femtocell-tofemtocell handover, named Mobility Prediction and Capacity Estimation based scheme (MPCE-based scheme), which has the advantages of the mobility prediction and femtocell’s available capacity estimation methods. Performance results obtained by computer simulation show that the proposed MPCE-based scheme can reduce unnecessary femtocell-tofemtocell handovers, maintain low data delay and improve the throughput of femtocell users. DOI: 10.32913/rd-ict.vol3.no14.536

Development of a lower extremity wearable exoskeleton with double compact elastic module: preliminary experiments

Abstract. In this paper, a double compact elastic module is designed and implemented in the lower extremity exoskeleton. The double compact elastic module is composed of two parts, i.e., physical human robot interaction (pHRI) measurement and the elastic actuation system (EAS), which are called proximal elastic module (PEM) and distal elastic module (DEM) respectively. The PEM is used as the pHRI information collection device while the DEM is used as the compliance device. A novel compact parallelogram-like structure based torsional spring is designed and developed. An iterative finite element analysis (FEA) based optimization process was conducted to find the optimal parameters in the search space. In the PEM, the designed torsional spring has an outer circle with a diameter of 60 mm and an inner hole with a diameter of 12 mm, while in the DEM, the torsional spring has the outer circle with a diameter of 80 mm and the inner circle with a diameter of 16 mm. The torsional spring in the PEM has a thickness of 5 mm and a weight of 60 g, while that in the DEM has a thickness of 10 mm and a weight of 80 g. The double compact elastic module prototype is embedded in the mechanical joint directly. Calibration experiments were conducted on those two elastic modules to obtain the linear torque versus angle characteristic. The calibration experimental results show that this torsional spring in the PEM has a stiffness of 60.2 Nm rad−1, which is capable of withstanding a maximum torque of 4 Nm, while that in the DEM has a stiffness of 80.2 Nm rad−1, which is capable of withstanding a maximum torque of 30 Nm. The experimental results and the simulation data show that the maximum resultant errors are 6 % for the PEM and 4 % for the DEM respectively. In this paper, an assumed regression algorithm is used to learn the human motion intent (HMI) based on the pHRI collection. The HMI is defined as the angular position of the human limb joint. A closed-loop position control strategy is utilized to drive the robotic exoskeleton system to follow the human limb's movement. To verify the developed system, experiments are performed on healthy human subjects and experimental results show that this novel robotic exoskeleton can help human users walk, which can be extended and applied in the assistive wearable exoskeletons.

Health Impact Assessment of Riverside Regeneration in Active Travel

Background More than half of the population is living in urban areas worldwide, and the global urban population is expected to grow 1,8% approximately every year between 2015 and 2020. Urban regeneration is a growing-up tendency that aims to improve the economics, physical, social and environmental condition of an area that has changed or offers opportunities for improvement. Since several studies have suggested association between access to natural outdoor environments (including green and blue spaces) and increase of physical activity, regeneration of these environments located in urban settings could increase physical activity levels among the population, which has been associated with better general and mental health. However, health impact of this urban regeneration has not been estimated yet. Thus, the goal of this study is to quantify the health impact of the urban riverside regeneration performed in 2000, in Sant Adria de Besos (Barcelona). Moreover, the study aims also to do a benefit cost analysis of the regeneration. Methods Physical activity levels, which were considered to be null before the intervention, were estimated using metabolic equivalent (MET hour/week), employing a survey from 2015 (N=973) that asked the users of the fluvial park about the reason (main activity) why they were in the park, the duration and the frequency of the visits, among others. Users were intercepted by the interviewers along the park from 8am to 8 pm. The prevented number of deaths was estimated using a dose-response function of all cause mortality and physical activity from a meta-analysis. Economic assessment was performed based on the value of statistical life in Spain (3,2 million €), and the intervention cost (37 millions of €) was collected from the public reports. Results Out of the total number of walking users (1.070.000) of the fluvial park of Besos River counted in 2015; 1,1% used the fluvial park to walk to work. These subjects walk an average of 137 minutes per person per day; this represents a physical activity expenditure of 38,9 METs hours/week. This increase on walking to work using the fluvial park was estimated to prevent 12 deaths per year, what leads to an average annual benefit of 21.180.000€. Therefore, the estimated benefit to cost ratio was 5,7:1. Conclusions Fluvial park regeneration of Besos River was associated with health and economic benefits. Fluvial park regeneration could help increase active transportation in the population and could be a useful intervention to promote public health.

Stride-in-the-Loop Relative Positioning Between Users and Dummy Acoustic Speakers

We propose and implement a novel positioning system, WalkieLokie, which directly calculates the relative position from a smart device to a target. The requirement of the target is simple: it is attached with a “dummy” acoustic speaker, which does not have any other rich capabilities, such as audio recording, communication, or computation. Hence, the proliferation of smart devices, together with the cheap accessory (e.g., dummy speaker) embedded in daily used items (e.g., smart clothes), paves the way for WalkieLokie applications. WalkieLokie leverages the walking motion for locating an acoustic speaker. The key insight is that the distance between the user and the speaker varies in real time when the user walks, and the pattern of the variance implies the relative position. We design a novel algorithm to estimate the position and signal processing methods to support accurate positioning. The experiment results show that the mean errors of ranging and direction estimation are 0.63 m and 2.46°, respectively. Extensive experiments conducted in noisy environments validate the robustness of WalkieLokie.

Bending the Curve: Sensitivity to Bending of Curved Paths and Application in Room-Scale VR.

Redirected walking (RDW) promises to allow near-natural walking in an infinitely large virtual environment (VE) by subtle manipulations of the virtual camera. Previous experiments analyzed the human sensitivity to RDW manipulations by focusing on the worst-case scenario, in which users walk perfectly straight ahead in the VE, whereas they are redirected on a circular path in the real world. The results showed that a physical radius of at least 22 meters is required for undetectable RDW. However, users do not always walk exactly straight in a VE. So far, it has not been investigated how much a physical path can be bent in situations in which users walk a virtual curved path instead of a straight one. Such curved walking paths can be often observed, for example, when users walk on virtual trails, through bent corridors, or when circling around obstacles. In such situations the question is not, whether or not the physical path can be bent, but how much the bending of the physical path may vary from the bending of the virtual path. In this article, we analyze this question and present redirection by means of bending gains that describe the discrepancy between the bending of curved paths in the real and virtual environment. Furthermore, we report the psychophysical experiments in which we analyzed the human sensitivity to these gains. The results reveal encouragingly wider detection thresholds than for straightforward walking. Based on our findings, we discuss the potential of curved walking and present a first approach to leverage bent paths in a way that can provide undetectable RDW manipulations even in room-scale VR.

Development of JARoW-II active robotic walker reflecting pelvic movements while walking

This paper addresses the problem of a novel walking assist scheme considering pelvic movements. Generally, pelvic motion includes pelvic tilt, pelvic rotation, and lateral pelvic displacement. When a human walks, the pelvis is meant to both tilt and rotate. Specifically, rotational movement on the pelvis' transverse plane and tilting movement on its coronal plane are related to stride length and step width in walking and center-of-gravity swaying in the left-and-right direction, respectively. With these considerations, we introduce the innovative design of our second generation assist robotic walker (JARoW-II) for elderly people in need of supervision. And, this paper proposes a pelvic based walking-support control technique employing JARoW-II. By facilitating pelvic movements while walking, we try to enhance and/or maintain ambulatory performances such as stride length. As another important feature, the scheme is realized without use of specific manual controls or additional equipment. In detail, JARoW-II allows to accurately generate both the direction and location of walking movement and the pelvic movement in a way that corresponds to the user's walking steps. In this paper, the implementation details based on the walking-support scheme are explained, and the effectiveness of the scheme by using JARoW-II is verified through extensive experiments in everyday environments.

Booking Behavior of Free-Floating Carsharing Users

In recent years, the services of free-floating carsharing (FFCS) systems have gained popularity, especially in urban areas. Some FFCS operators are now including battery electric vehicles (BEVs) in their fleets. This addition is especially beneficial for cities and their inhabitants, as BEVs are locally emission free and move more quietly. However, how FFCS customers react to the new technology has not yet been empirically analyzed. By combining the app call and booking data of an FFCS operator in Munich, Germany, this study assessed the preferences of customers when booking a specific car and evaluated the attractiveness of the fleet’s BEVs. With the consideration of the spatial availability encountered when the mobile phone app was opening, the study found that the distance to the nearest available car was the most important decision criterion for customers. If a car had been available within 200 m, the probability that customers booked a car would have been twice as great compared with the case that the nearest vehicle had been 500 m away (100 m ≈ 0.06 mi). In addition, the majority of the customers booked the nearest available car. Nevertheless, certain qualities of vehicles made users walk to a car that was farther away. The study identified popular vehicle models and found that customers preferred to use the fleet’s BEVs, independent of the battery level. BEVs were used for almost the same distances as internal combustion engine vehicles and were suitable for most use cases: more than 80% of the FFCS trips covered a distance of at most 20 km (≈12.4 mi).

A user experience case study: two embodied cognition user interface solutions for a math learning game

Game-based learning solutions provide possibilities to teach conceptual number knowledge in engaging ways. The evaluation of user experience and error-proneness of the user interface are crucial in the educational game development process and game-based assessment. In the present study, we investigated how two different user interfaces of the rational number game, Semideus, influenced the game character controlling accuracy and user experience. Two user interfaces varying in the intensity of physical activities needed for controlling the game character were compared. Thirty-six university students played both Semideus game versions for 20 minutes in randomized order. In order to compare the tilting (low physical intensity) and walking (high physical intensity) user interfaces we used stealth assessment as an objective measure of controlling accuracy as well as flow experience and playability questionnaires as subjective measures of user experience. The results revealed that there was no significant difference in game controlling accuracy between the user interface solutions, suggesting that the intensity of the physical activities did not influence the error-proneness. However, the subjective measures indicated that students appreciated the tilting user interface significantly more than the walking user interface. Implications of the findings for future research and further development of the Semideus game are discussed.