Bei der diesjährigen CeBIT in Hannover präsentierte Telocate vom 14. – 15. März 2016 auf dem Stand des BMWi das akustische Smartphone-Ortungssystem Telocate ASSIST. Die innovative Technologie zur präzisen Lokalisierung von Smartphones im Gebäude stieß hierbei auf vielfaches Interesse. Darüber hinaus konnte Telocate sein Produkt während mehrerer Programmpunkte auf dem Forum des BMWi einem breiten Fachpublikum vorstellen.
Telocate stellt seine Ortungstechnologie einem interessierten Fachpublikum vor.Auf dem Gemeinschaftsstand des BMWi präsentierte das junge Startup Telocate seine innovative Lösung zur Smartphone-Ortung.
The project FIWARE-ASSIST has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration through the frontierCities accelerator programme (grant agreement no. 632853) under the sub-grant agreement no. 006.
Zur diesjährigen LogiMAT 2016 in Stuttgart wurde Telocate eingeladen, vor interessiertem Fachpublikum einen Vortrag über die Möglichkeiten und aktuellen Trends im Bereich der Lokalisierung in der Intralogistik zu halten. Vor ca. 150 Besuchern aus Industrie und Wirtschaft präsentierte Dr. Johannes Wendeberg die aktuellen Forschungsansätze von Telocate und der Universität Freiburg, und stieß insbesondere im Bereich der neuen Möglichkeiten mit ultraschallbasierten Ortungsverfahren und mit der Verwendung von FIWARE auf reges Interesse.
The project FIWARE-ASSIST has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration through the frontierCities accelerator programme (grant agreement no. 632853) under the sub-grant agreement no. 006.
Visual impairment is one of the severe types of disabilities and, despite of numerous advances in technology, it remains a serious mobility problem even today. About 285 milion people worldwide are visually impaired, according to the World Health Organization.
One of the most difficult aspects of visual impairment is the lack of orientation in unknown environments both outdoor and indoor resulting in a dependency on sighted individuals for navigation. A primary future application field of Telocate ASSIST is the creation of an indoor navigation system to address the chalanging task of serving an orientation in unknown environments. Our system is capable of this application due to its distinctive precision of 20 cm that outperforms any other system for indoor smartphone navigation.
A blind-folded person navigates through the maze with audible aid from the location-aware smartphone using Telocate ASSIST.
In collaboration with the Center for Cognitive Science of the Institute of Informatics and Society (IIG), University of Freiburg, we have created and conducted an experiment to learn more about the demands and wishes of blind people. The governing question of the experiment was, how can blind, or blindfolded people, navigate through a maze given only instructions from a smartphone and a blind peoples’ white cane?
One of the two mazes of the experiment in which the participants had to complete tasks such as navigating towards a specific point of interest (POI).
For the experiment setup three experimental modes were created:
In Navigation, the test persons were given hints about the direction and distance to a target, a specific point of interest (POI), as well as information about POIs in the close vicinity of the person. The mode should lead to quick wayfinding with hardly any overview of the map, leading to a rather weak mental representation of the map.
In Nearby the test persons were to be given only information about POIs in the close vicinity. The mode should allow moderate wayfinding and give hardly any overview of the map, leading to a moderate mental representation of the map.
In Vista the test persons were given information of all POIs in their “visible” range, i.e. all POIs in a room where no maze wall would separate the line-of-sight of the user and the POI. The mode was expected to enable rather weak wayfinding, but a good overview and the best mental map of the maze.
In the experiment 23 test persons participated. Each of them should, unaware of the layout of the maze and entirely blindfolded, complete certain tasks inside the maze. Everyone conducted two runs in both mazes with two of the three experiment modes. The test persons were equipped with a smartphone with the navigation app running and with headphones for the audio input. This turned out to make the audio cues better understandable, compared to the built-in speaker of the phone. Furthermore, the persons received a white cane to feel and avoid obstacles.
We expected that multiple experimental modes are necessary for different use cases, which depend on the intention of the user. The navigation mode allows the user a very target oriented motion without lots of information about the surrounding POIs. In contrast, the vista mode informs the user about all POIs in the visible range resulting in weaker wayfinding but best overview of the surroundings. The nearby mode is a tradeoff between the navigation mode and the vista mode allowing a less target oriented motion but a way better overview of the scenery than in navigation mode.
Two experiment modes on the same maze: On the left, a participant used the navigation mode to complete the maze. On the right, the vista mode was chosen.
The experiment demonstrated, that ASSIST accomplishes the expected high-precision navigation, and how a navigation frontend can help blind (-folded) people navigate through an unknown environment indoors.
The proposed application is ambitious in its technical and social implications. Not only that we need a system that is trusted from its technical performance, an important task is to convince the user to rely on the system. Especially, since the use of indoor navigation based on a smartphone may imply to leave off a third person to guide the blind person, and walk on their own instead.
The experiment was executed in context of FIWARE-ASSIST with support of the FIWARE accelerator program frontierCities.
The project FIWARE-ASSIST has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration through the frontierCities accelerator programme (grant agreement no. 632853) under the sub-grant agreement no. 006.
Bei der diesjährigen CeBIT in Hannover (16. – 20. März 2015) bot sich für Telocate die Möglichkeit zur Ausstellung als eines der durch das BMWi geförderten Startups. In Halle 9, Themenbereich „Research & Innovation“, präsentierte Telocate auf dem Stand des BMWi einen Live-Demonstrator des ASSIST-Systems. Das Ideenkonzept Telocate ASSIST zur präzisen Lokalisierung von Smartphones im Gebäude stieß hierbei auf vielfaches Interesse, und Telocate konnte sein künftiges Produkt während mehrer Programmpunkte im Rahmenprogramm des BMWi einem breiten Fachpublikum vorstellen.
Thomas Janson und Johannes Wendeberg vor dem Stand von Telocate.Podiumsdiskussion mit der Parlamentarischen Staatssekretärin Brigitte Zypries, Gesche Joost, Rolf Dieter Metka und Johannes Wendeberg zum Thema „IT-Startups: Kleine Firmen mit der DNA eines Giganten?!“Ein zentrales Thema der Podiumsdiskussion waren die Chancen und Herausforderungen bei der Finanzierung für junge Startups in Deutschland.Die Parlamentarische Staatssekretärin Frau Brigitte Zypries und Johannes Wendeberg diskutieren den Einsatz der Telocate-Technologie in den Räumen des BMWi – (c) BMWi/M. Reitz, 2015.
