Indoor Positioning Using Mobile Devices
June-Jei Kuo
Assistant Professor, Graduate Institute of Library and Information Science, National Chung Hsing University, Taichung, Taiwan (R,O.C.)
E-mail: jjkuo@dragon.nchu.edu.tw
Keywords: Augmented Reality; Book Locating; Children; Indoor Positioning; Smart Watch
【Abstract】
Currently library book retrieval methods can provide the call numbers to the users. Then, the users can employ those numbers to access the books on the related shelves sequentially. However, the time of querying and retrieval flow is very long. Especially, when users conduct the cross field learning or children users search books, the desire books can not be accessed efficiently. As to the library guide service, the positioning technology is necessary in order to obtain the positions of users in the library and then by using the positions the guide service can provide the related route guides. Nevertheless, as the library is a close space so as not to be able to access the signals of satellites. Thus, the global positioning system can not be utilized in the libraries. In order to tackle this issue and attract the children to utilize the library, this paper proposes a Children book locating system without indoor positioning using “Aurasma” augmented reality tool and smart phones, respectively. To understand the performance of manual book locating, the control group employs the book locating manual to the locate the related books. Moreover, to compare the performance with the book locating system using indoor positioning, the smart watches are introduced from the public library. Both the average locating accuracy and the average locating time are used to evaluate the performance among the control group, the smart watch group and the proposed system group. Furthermore, the experimental results show that the average book locating accuracy of the proposed system group is superior to that of both the control group and the smart watch group. The smart watch group is superior to the control group as well. On the other hand, as to the average book locating time, the performances of both the proposed system and smart watch group are superior to that of the control group. However, there is no significant difference between the proposed system and smart watch group. Finally, the feasibility of the proposed system is discussed and furtherly some suggestion and future works are presented.
DOI: 10.6245/JLIS.201910_45(2).0003
【Long Abstract】
Introduction
Due to the fact that most information retrieval systems employ query terms to search, children lack of complete, easy-to-understand knowledge structures (i.e., subject heading list or thesaurus for children) to assist the effective information retrieval. Thus, those have caused children to perform poorly in search and cannot make good use of various library resources. Meanwhile, Augmented Reality (AR) combines real-world images, materials, and data with virtual objects to create composite images that can be used to generate excellent interactive effect through tracking and indoor positioning techniques. AR has a wide range of applications such as education, museum tours, games, online shopping, furniture configuration, sightseeing tours, advertising media and so on. For the libraries and the academic community, in addition to the application of AR, the issue that needs more attention is the introduction of AR will change the way users interact with information, and even further change how users view information itself.
As a result, how libraries can guide children through AR which combined with dynamic indicators and digital information, so that they are no longer constrained by the lack of knowledge, and help them use libraries without parental assistance. Furthermore, in order to accommodate for children’s habits, how to develop a digital system that conforms to the digital generation of native digital technology to attract children to use the library effectively has become a very important issue. Thus, when using the AR to develop the book locating system, several problems below are encountered.
(1) In order to support the immediate data processing and display of the book locating system, expensive hardware and software are indispensable.
(2) Instant massive data processing technology is needed, for example, stream computing, etc.
(3) A lot of manpower, material resources and money are needed for the development of indoor positioning system.
(4) Extra money in the development of AR display devices, such as smart watch with AR must be invested.
To tackle the above problems, this study used AR tool (i.e., Aurasma) and smartphones to develop children’s book locating system that does not require indoor positioning to attract children to use the related resources of public libraries.
Methods
“Aurasma” is an AR platform developed by HP Autonomy, which is a tool for creating AR. Aurasma uses camera to capture the “trigger” images and instantly overlay text, pictures, and even videos on the screen to achieve auxiliary and prompt effects. Since the Aurasma is utilized to link the aura to the overlay, no positioning system is needed so that the user can scan the aura to see the overlay. For that reason, this study employs the bookshelf and book cover in children’s library center as an aura. In addition, the overlays are the map to the bookshelf and the cute doll to point the book, respectively. To understand and compare the effectiveness of the proposed children book locating system, this study divided the children participants into three groups as follows:
(1) Group A: find books by themselves who are supplemented by manual.
(2) Group B: using AR locating with the proposed book locating system (using smart phones).
(3) Group C: using AR locating of smart watches provide by the library’s children center.
Furthermore, the National Library of Public Information built a children’s center which has AR facilities using smart watches. This study uses purposive sampling to select aged 6 to 10, first grade to fourth grade of the primary school in Taiwan as the participants. Experimental group C was assigned 16 children, group A and group B each was assigned 30 children. Each group was instructed by its own way of locating books.
However, five children’s books were randomly selected from the children’s center as the target of the book locating, both the book covers and their call number cardboards were prepared as the auras for the group B.
Results
In order to understand both the performance of the above three groups and the feasibility of the proposed book locating system, two evaluation metrics which are accuracy and spending time of locating book are employed. Accuracy is used to measure whether the participants can locate the book correctly or not. On the other hand, spending time is used to measure the performance of locating book. One-way ANOVA is used to conduct the pre-tests for checking the average of the three group. Whenever the difference of the three groups is tested, T-test is utilized to conduct the post-test, which test whether the results of two groups are significantly different or not. Furthermore, to understand the related reasons of good or bad experimental results, semi-structure questionnaire is used as well.
To understand the performance of accuracy on locating book, pre-test is first conducted. The result showed that there is significantly different among the three groups. Consequently, three post-tests using t-test were conducted. As statistical results showed that the performances of both Group B and Group C are better than that of Group A. As most of the children participants are not familiar with call number or
classification number, they are prone to fail to locate the book manually. Thus, we can conclude that the development of book locating or navigation system for children is indispensable. Next, as the accuracies of both the Group B and Group C are better than that of Group A, the accuracy comparison between Group B and Group C is conducted. As the performance of the two group are significantly different, it can tell that the accuracy of locating book of Group B is better than that of Group C as well. Thus, it can tell that the proposed book locating system using AR without positioning is promising.
Nevertheless, to understand the performance of spending time on locating book, pre-test is also conducted.
The result showed that there is significantly different among the three groups. Consequently, three post-tests using t-test were conducted. The T test result of spending time on Group A and Group B ( or Group C) showed that the spending time of two groups had significant difference. Thus, we can conclude that the time performances of both Group B and Group C are better than that of Group A. As the spending time of both the Group B and Group C are better than that of Group A, the spending time comparison between Group B and Group C are conducted. As there is no difference between them, it can tell that spending time performance of group C is not different from that of group B. Therefore, in spite of not using positioning devices, the appending time of the proposed book locating system is still as good as that of using smart watch with positioning devices.
Future Work
This paper proposed a novel children book locating system using AR without positioning, which can provide effectively children with both the current position and route to the bookshelf where the book they need is located. In the future, a follow-up investigation should be performed and critical problems of the proposed book locating system should be furtherly tackled. In addition, more context-aware information to enhance the book locating system to book navigation system will be also brought in.
【Romanization of references is offered in the paper.】