Objective
The goal of the project is the theoretical and experimental investigation of the topological localization of people in indoor environments. As part of this research project, a navigation system for people will be developed as a pilot project.
Motivation
The basis of navigation is determining one’s own location, which is also referred to as localization. The localization of people and objects outside of buildings can be achieved through the use of satellite positioning systems such as GPS. In environments where GPS information is unavailable or insufficient—such as inside buildings or in areas shaded by buildings—it is not possible to determine a position using satellite positioning. In such environments, other positioning technologies must be used.
In classical localization, a location is determined using coordinates from a local or georeferenced global coordinate system. For navigation purposes, this position is then projected onto a topological map, which must be referenced in the same coordinate system. In a topological map, paths are represented as weighted edges and forks/intersections as nodes of a graph. For outdoor navigation, maps such as Google Maps or OpenStreetMap are available. For indoor navigation, maps often have to be created from scratch and laboriously referenced to a coordinate system. With topological localization, a coordinate system is not required for either localization or map creation. The basic idea behind topological localization is to determine a position on the edges of the topological map as the distance to the nearest node. This form of localization corresponds to the natural way humans navigate using landmarks, which also does not involve exact position determination within a coordinate system.
Project Partners
As part of this research project, a topological localization system for indoor navigation at Dortmund University of Applied Sciences and Arts is being implemented in collaboration with the university library and Department VI—University IT. The project aims to implement two different use cases at Dortmund University of Applied Sciences and Arts as examples. In the Computer Science Building (Emil-Figge-Str. 42), the system will enable users to navigate to specific rooms, and in the library (Emil-Figge-Str. 44), it will enable users to navigate to books they have searched for using their cell phones.
Funding
Internal University Funding (HIFF)