AbleNav

An accessible indoor navigation tool that helps visitors find key landmarks (like bathrooms, emergency exit, etc.) in large indoor spaces (like campuses, museums, airports, etc.)

#Networks, #Android, #Accessibility, #Interaction Design
Sem 2, ITP, 2023
Play Video about Hero Image of me, apoorva, presenting at the ITP Spring Show 2023

Objectives

  1. Discover a position anchoring system that does not involve setting up new infrastructure.
  2. Design an inclusive experience of routing and navigation.
  3. Incorporate a plural navigation methodology by being suggestive and not instructional while routing.
  4. Focus on key landmarks that are essential for one’s spatial awareness and not hyper-specific indoor positioning.

Principles of Plural Navigation

Research

Research mindmap on various Indoor and Outdoor Navigation platforms and technology behind them.
Research mindmap on various Indoor and Outdoor Navigation platforms and technology behind them

Key Takeaways

- Plural Navigation Framework humans have 30 degree error in direction Various ways humans navigate the immediate surroundings - cane, wheelchair, sight, smell, touch - tactile signages, ai-bemyeyes
Various ways people navigate outdoors - signages,route planning, compass, turn my turn navigation, gps

User Journey Map

Reverse Engineer

Why is moving internally harder than moving externally?

"There were many people who just gave a one liner saying the person does not have the required skills."

"...You cannot automate networking..."

"...IBM complicates things, there's got to be a better way"

Process

1 Mapping the routers in the space

Image of a floor plan of ITP with all the wifi routers and and key landmarks including emergency exits, kitchen, bathrooms, vending machines and stairways mapped.
Image of a floor plan of ITP with all the wifi routers and and key landmarks including emergency exits, kitchen, bathrooms, vending machines and stairways mapped.

2 Noting the Mac Addresses of each router

MacAddress

Location

6c:8b:d3:xx:85:xx

north-side open studio

dc:8c:37:xx:12:xx

classrooms corridor

dc:8c:37:xx:97:xx

room 410

dc:8c:37:xx:f9:xx

room 411

dc:8c:37:xx:83:xx

room 412

dc:8c:37:xx:a1:xx

room 413

6c:8b:d3:xx:84:xx

entarace 

dc:8c:37:xx:b2:xx

hallway behind the shop

dc:8c:37:xx:e1:xx

hallway by emergency exit

dc:8c:37:xx:9c:xx

south-side hallway

dc:8c:37:xx:45:xx

mid-floor open studio

dc:8c:37:xx:73:xx

south-side open studio

Screenshot of a webpge created to get the mac addresses of routers using an arduino and publishing on the web prototype
Screenshot of a webpge created to get the mac addresses of routers using an arduino and publishing on the web prototype
Floor plan of ITP marked with the bssids of the different routers
Floor plan of ITP marked with the bssids of the different routers

Tech explored and used in the process

1. Arduino
2. MQTT (mosquito.net, public.shiftr.io)
3. Node.js
4. JavaScript
5. Android

Screens

Fix what you have and states

Why is moving internally harder than moving externally?

"There were many people who just gave a one liner saying the person does not have the required skills."

"...You cannot automate networking..."

"...IBM complicates things, there's got to be a better way"

Demo

Fix what you have and states

Why is moving internally harder than moving externally?

"There were many people who just gave a one liner saying the person does not have the required skills."

"...You cannot automate networking..."

"...IBM complicates things, there's got to be a better way"

Learnings and Changes

Issues

Fixes

When the device connects to any router, there is a sudden surge of signal strength followed by a drop. After a few seconds, the signal strength relatively normalizes.
When the event listener is set to any state change, the message interval time here is a few milliseconds. This overloads my server during prototyping.

Since there is a constant fluctuation of +/-2 signal strength, I don’t really need to see that minute of a state change. I added a threshold of +/-5 to update the state change.
This helped with the surge issue on connection or switch to a new router.

Some routers have a higher bandwidth that the others which means you stay connected to those routers even when you move out of the location and closer to another router’s location.

Some routers are very difficult to connect to. This could be because of a another nearby router with a higher bandwidth due to which this routers has gone into hibernation.

Next Steps and Opportunity Areas

Fix what you have and states

Why is moving internally harder than moving externally?

"There were many people who just gave a one liner saying the person does not have the required skills."

"...You cannot automate networking..."

"...IBM complicates things, there's got to be a better way"