AR Indoor Wayfinding Cues for Accurate Navigation Without Beacons
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing indoor route guidance systems are inefficient, costly, and fail to adapt to changing indoor environments, and do not account for human navigation preferences, making them impractical for accurate and intuitive indoor navigation.
Innovation Solution
An Augmented Reality (AR) based wayfinding system that superimposes dynamic visual and haptic cues onto a user's video feed, providing real-time guidance through an indoor location, using a user device with integrated camera and sensors to track location and provide AR objects indicating turns and distances, and highlighting items along the path.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If traditional indoor location tracking methods (Bluetooth beacons, overhead cameras) are used, then location tracking capability is achieved, but system cost and complexity increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent uses the device's existing camera to capture visual copies of the physical environment, replacing expensive specialized tracking hardware with a ubiquitous consumer component already present in smartphones and tablets
Solution Approach 2:
The system leverages the device's own sensors, camera, and processing capabilities to perform location tracking without requiring external infrastructure, making the device self-sufficient for navigation purposes
2Ease of operation
If conventional wayfinders are modified for indoor use, then basic guidance functionality is provided, but adaptability to changing indoor layouts deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The wayfinder system dynamically adapts to changing indoor layouts by continuously processing real-time visual data from the camera, automatically updating navigation guidance without requiring manual reconfiguration when layouts change
Solution Approach 2:
The system continuously compares the user's actual position (derived from camera feed) with the planned path, providing real-time feedback and automatically adjusting guidance to account for layout changes or deviations
3Loss of information
If driving-style route guidance with distance measurements is provided indoors, then precise navigation information is given, but usability decreases because people do not associate walking distances with driving distances
Solution Approach 1:
The system changes the parameter of distance measurement from absolute metric units (meters, feet) to relative temporal units (steps, time to destination), transforming the information to match how pedestrians naturally perceive and understand walking distances
4Measurement precision
If high precision indoor wayfinding is implemented, then accurate navigation is achieved, but system cost increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces expensive specialized indoor positioning infrastructure with copies of visual data captured by consumer-grade device cameras, achieving wayfinding functionality through software processing of ordinary images
Solution Approach 2:
The system substitutes mechanical/electronic positioning infrastructure (beacons, cameras, RFID systems) with a software-based visual processing approach using the device's existing camera and sensors
Data Source
AI summary
An Augmented Reality (AR) wayfinder tracks the current location of a user within an indoor location relative to a path defined through the indoor location for the user. The path is broken into segments, each segment is a straight line between two nodes, and each node represents either a starting point in the path, a turn along the path, or an ending point in the path. As the user traverses the path, a remaining distance between the user device and the next node in the path is calculated. An AR object with attributes that correlate to the remaining distance to the next node is blended into and superimposed into a video that the user is viewing through the user device of the physical environment as the user travels along the path.