NAVCOM is a research project of five different organisations and is led by the degree program “Energy, Transport and Environmental Management / Energy and Transport Management” of the FH JOANNEUM GmbH, in Kapfenberg.

 

Project description: 
This project attempts to increase the very limited possibilities in using the public transport for people with special needs. People with special needs have problems travelling independently due to the lack of security measures in public transportation and the complexity of the infrastructure buildings. To increase the traveling possibilities a new project was created, based on the project "way4all" (1^st Call of ways2go), that assist many user groups in their travel demands in public transport, from visually impaired people to tourists.
The special feature of this project is to combine two new technologies: the inertial navigation for indoor routing and WLAN technology for communicating with public transport modes. Recent research results have shown that a combination of these components can be very useful for the reason that they can expand the existing public transportation systems and can guarantee a smooth transition at crossing points of the transportation systems.

The inertial navigation system, developed by the Institute of Building Informatics, TU Graz, is already successfully tested. At this stage of the development, the indoor location of people can be shown on digital building plans.

As part of this project, this inertial technology will be further developed and miniaturized. The implementation of this technology on a mobile phone according to the 2-sense principle(audible and visual) and the linking with the RFID technology for navigation are the main research tasks.

The accuracy of the inertial navigation can be enhanced several times, by integrating the use of passive RFID tags, which are placed inside the floor on strategic points, within the inertial navigation. At the same time, the minimal required number of tags within the navigation can be significantly reduced by using inertial navigation alongside the, at the FH JOANNEUM developed, routing-method “GERWEI-method” and navigation algorithm in the project “ways4all”. The work and cost for the operator will decrease considerably and a deployment of the navigation on large scale is guaranteed.
The possibility of the use of WLAN technology is derived from the successful preliminary work at the FH JOANNEUM and project demonstration “Rampe” in France. WLAN has the required sending range needed for double bus stops and is available on common mobile phones. Both statistic station information as well as real-time dynamic schedule information, such as delays or track changes, can be requested on site directly by the mobile phone. For the first time in history, visually impaired and blind people will receive a feedback on their request send, like an entry request or bus number. This new feature makes this technology unique.
The goal of this project is to expand the research results obtained in the project "ways4all" and to create a uniform overall system for navigation and communication.
As a project result, a continuous and individually-accessible mobility and information chain is presented for all kind of travellers, which supports safe travel significantly, especially in public transport.

 

Link to the NAVCOM abridged version: NAVCOM abridged version 

 

 

Project DI (FH) Werner Bischof
Deputy Project Manager DI Martjin Kiers

Project partners:
ÖBB Infrastruktur AG
DI. Wolfgang Skowronek

Wiener Linien GmbH & Co KG
Ing. Roland Krpata

Graz University of Technology - Institute of Building Informatics
Univ. Prof. Dr. Ulrich Walder

Österreichischer Blinden- und Sehbehindertenverband (ÖBSV)
Landesgruppe Wien, NÖ u. Bgld.
Wolfgang Kremser