|
Navigation Application with Mobile Telephony: Shortest-path
Jacey-Lynn Minoi Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, 94300 Kota Samarahan, Malaysia jacey@fit.unimas.my Dr Peter Green The University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology, United Kingdom peter.n.green@co.umist.ac.uk Sylvester Arnab Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, Malaysia sylvester@fit.unimas.my
In the age of information explosion and technological advancement, ubiquitous location-awareness is becoming a significant feature in the era of telecommunication [1]. The ubiquitous location-awareness is a requirement for certain telecommunication or mobile applications that uses location information. This development is linked to the tremendous growth in the number and the sophistication of mobile phone and mobile technology. And the trend continues stealthily invading mobile domains especially of those that utilise geographical positions or location information of the mobile devices or that of the mobile user [1]. Various ubiquitous location-awareness applications that are available in the market are normally tailored to a specific technology. Most of these applications require support from a combination of a number of technologies such as location sensor technologies (GPS, MSR RADAR, etc), service providers, and the Internet [1].
Geographical Information Systems (GIS) is an important element in any the ubiquitous location-awareness applications since it contains all the geographical information of the cities, roads, streets [1]. This information is obtained from sources such as topographic maps and satellite images, which are then filtered and delivered to the applications. Nevertheless visualisation plays an important role especially in displaying spatial data in an image format. This image format is useful in aiding the user’s understanding of the meaning of the data displayed [1]. Presently, there are very few mobile mapping applications that are available in the market that display the spatial data in an image format. This paper will introduce a prototype of mobile shortest path navigation application that concentrates on roads or streets in urban areas such as in Manchester City. The application prototype aims to provide mobile phone users with a wider and immediate accessibility to the road information to enable them to navigate visually around the city and to display the shortest path or route between two different locations in a map format. The application should be user-friendly, as the services provided are deemed to be more comprehensive and innovative in the future. It has to be highly usable and accessible to all targeted groups of mobile phone users anywhere around the world. Mobile Mapping The use of a portable and wireless device such as Personal Digital Assistance (PDA) and mobile phone is becoming popular and significant. Recent studies [3,4] stated that more than 50% of the world population is reported to have a ratio of at least one mobile phone to a person. It is also stated that the percentage is expected to increase, as the product range in mobile telephony is made more available at reduced prices and equipped with advanced function [3]. The studies also state that by the year 2003, 50% of the 1 billion wireless devices that are available will be connected to the Internet [3]. This emerging and widespread Internet technology has dramatically changed the technology of mobile computing and mobile mapping [4]. The technology of mobile mapping is expanding significantly due also to the rising exceptions of the consumers [4]. The mobile mapping technology incorporates ubiquitous location-awareness and GIS features. This is to ensure that the final products will stay buoyant in the competitive telecommunication market. Geographical Information Systems GIS has been in existence for over twenty-five years in one form or another [23]. GIS is, accordingly, whole subject matters and processing contexts that involve a spatial component in the natural world. A GIS may thus be described as: “… a set of tools for collecting, storing, retrieving at will, transforming and displaying spatial data from the real world for a particular set of purposes.” [24] The term spatial data is characterised by information of positions (such as latitude and longitude), connection with other features (e.g. the path between two points) and details of non-spatial characteristics (examples details of temperature, rainfall, road traffic and etc.) [24]. Routing GIS-based solution based on spatial data is becoming very popular and is useful in mobile mapping [4]. The users provide input for the start and the destination point into the mapping mobile system. The system will next display a highlighted route in an image, text or voice format. The navigation application prototype is regarded as a GIS-based routing solution; collecting, storing, searching and retrieving roads and street information, manipulating and calculating the shortest path from one location to another by using a programming language Avenue scripting as the programming language. The Existing Online Road Navigation Applications At present, there is a number of existing online road navigation applications available on CD-ROMs and also on the Internet but not a single one yet available on a mobile phone [22]. Examples of such online road applications available on the Internet include www.MapQuest.com [18] and www.multiMap.com [19]. However, there are few limitations to these web-based navigation applications, such as it is not portable and poor visualisation designs (such as vague image, text-based). Another example of an online road navigation application is the road navigation system that is installed in cars e.g. Honda Navigation System [26]. The constraints of this system are that it is limited in numbers and are only useable in the United States, Japan and selected European countries such as Italy and Paris. Besides, the system is costly and physically bulky. A Location based Mapping System (MapMe.com) The shortest path navigation application is an extension of a larger system known as the ‘Location based mapping system’ or MapMe.com [5]. The aim of the ‘Location based mapping system’ was to develop a prototype mobile mapping system that would serve maps of a requested location to a WAP phone [5]. Figure 1 shows the conceptual diagram of the overall MapMe.com system. 
Figure 1: The Conceptual Infrastructure of the MapMe.com system [5] There are three major parts of the MapMe.com system, which are the WAP phone, the Web server and the GIS server. The WAP phone communicates with the Web server using WML/WMLScripts and these WML pages on the web server communicate with the GIS server using the Internet Map Server (IMS). Any search that is carried out on the GIS server will return the results to the Web server and WAP phone in WML pages. Figure 2 shows the screen sample of the map image generated by the ‘Location based mapping system’ on a typical WAP phone (the WAP phone interface is taken from the Openwave Software Development Kit). 
Figure 2: The WAP phone (Openwave SDK) Screen Sample [5]
Page 1 of 3
| Next | |