Augmented Reality Indoor Navigation With Cloud Anchor Fingerprinting
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional GPS systems fail to provide effective indoor navigation due to signal attenuation and blocking by walls, leading to challenges in navigating large indoor environments like malls and retail warehouses, which hampers customer experience.
Innovation Solution
An augmented reality-based system that utilizes cloud anchors placed on a floor plan graph, converted into a matrix using Prim's technique, to create an AR fingerprint for dynamic routing and optimize paths within indoor spaces.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If GPS satellite navigation system is used for outdoor navigation, then location and time information can be displayed in all weather conditions, but GPS signal gets attenuated or blocked by walls when indoor navigation is required
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces Wi-Fi signals as an intermediary navigation mechanism for indoor environments. Instead of relying on GPS satellites that are blocked by walls, the system uses Wi-Fi access points as intermediate positioning beacons. The mobile device detects Wi-Fi signals from multiple access points, uses triangulation to determine position, and overlays this information on a floor plan to provide indoor navigation guidance.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces the GPS satellite-based electromagnetic positioning system with a Wi-Fi-based electromagnetic positioning system adapted for indoor use. The system substitutes outdoor satellite signals with indoor Wi-Fi access point signals, and replaces simple distance-based GPS navigation with triangulation-based position calculation using multiple Wi-Fi access points.
2Ease of operation
If conventional navigation systems are used in large indoor environments like malls and retail warehouses, then basic direction guidance can be provided, but customer experience is hampered due to inability to search for products and connect with associates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent creates a universal indoor navigation platform that integrates multiple functions beyond simple direction guidance. The system combines navigation with product search capabilities, associate location tracking, and contextual information delivery. The floor plan overlay technology serves as a universal interface that can display various types of information (directions, product locations, associate positions) simultaneously, making the system adaptable to diverse indoor navigation needs.
Data Source
AI summary
The embodiments herein provide a method and system for an augmented reality based indoor navigation. The system creates an augmented reality (AR) based fingerprinting to perform the dynamic routing. A floor wise plan of the building is uploaded. The floor plan is converted to a floor plan graph. Then cloud anchors are created and placed across the floor. An anchor is a fixed position and orientation in the real world as recognized by any Augmented Reality (AR) device. Each time an anchor is placed, its position information is fingerprinted on the floorplan graph and that fingerprinting is saved in the database. When user scans for nearest QR code to identify their current position, the user location is identified and the planogram details, fingerprinting and pre-processed floorplan matrix are obtained from database. When user selects his destination, dynamic routing is performed to obtain shortest/optimized path viewed through augmented reality fingerprinting.