iLibrarian - an augmented reality navigation system on mobile devices

Abstract

It is easy to get lost in a library with a big collection of books, especially for the one who is unfamiliar with the environment. It would also present difficulties to those who are not good at positioning themselves or the bookshelves. Although librarians will assist you in finding a book, the number of librarians is limited and every librarian cannot fully know the location of every single book. Moreover, traditional GPS navigation system cannot perform indoor navigation, as satellite signals are weak in indoors. Another technique, using a known initial location and motion sensors to continuously calculate the relative positions of users in an inertial navigation system is subject to cumulative errors and is therefore not a complete solution. In the 20th century, almost everyone has a smartphone in their pockets. Let us imagine if we downloaded a smartphone application which made good use of indoor position system to locate ourselves and the book, we could obtain directions to the book in an easy and direct way, just like a librarian who guides you to find the book you want. In this project, a convenient, virtualized guiding service is introduced, called iLibrarian. It uses WiFi technology built into the smartphones to locate users in the indoor area. It makes use of sensors in the smart phone to detect users’ movement which is monitored by Wi-Fi positioning. The smart phone camera provides an augmented view of the library environment for enhancing users' perception of reality in the library. It can assist users to find the book in real time and in an interactive way.