Eye-tracking comparison of two road atlases

The usage of road atlases is experiencing a decline due to the rise in popularity of modern GPS navigational systems. However, road atlases are still utilised by some individuals, both in combination with mobile navigation and separately when navigating during the trip. Therefore, road atlases continue to be published. They are regularly updated, and they do gradually change, such as when the map symbology changes or when the creation of maps takes new technological possibilities into account. The changes in map symbology are the main essence of the presented paper. Based on the assumption presented by an expert (head of the largest cartographic publishing house in the Czech Republic) during an expert discussion that the 20-year-old road atlas is easier to read and that the required information was more quickly accessible in the old atlas than in the new atlas, a scientific experiment was designed and performed. Within the comparison of the "old" and "new" atlases, three hypotheses were established: (1) Accuracy of responses will be higher for the "old" atlas, (2) Time for task completion will be lower for the "old" atlas, and (3) Orientation in the maps from the "old" atlas will be easier. The eye-tracking testing performed did not confirm the first hypothesis, but the statistics confirmed the second and third hypotheses. The reasons for the different results for the "old" and "new" atlases were sometimes obvious (change in the graphic variables of a particular map symbol). Still, other times the causes were not completely clear. All of the experimental results were provided to the publishing house for further use in practice.

Archive access robot for smart archive repositories

Purpose Managing archives using robots rather than people can considerably enhance efficiency, while need to modify the structure of archive shelves or installation tracks. This paper aims to develop a fully automated archive access robot without modification. Design/methodology/approach First, a mobile navigation chassis and a motion algorithm based on laser ranging and map matching are created for autonomous movement to any of the archives’ locations. Second, because the existing archives are stacked vertically, the bionic manipulator is made to mimic the movement of manual access to the archives, and it is attached to the robot arm’s end to access different layers of archives. In addition, an industrial camera is used to complete barcode identification of the archives and acquire data on their location and thickness. Finally, the archive bin is created to store archives. Findings The robot can move, identify and access multiple archival copies placed on floors 1–6 and 2–5 cm thick autonomously without modifying the archival repository or using auxiliary devices. Research limitations/implications The robot is currently able to navigate, identify and access files placed on different levels. In the future, the speed of the robot’s navigation and the movement of the robot arm could be even faster, while the level of visualization of the robot could be further improved and made more intelligent. Practical implications The archive access robot developed by the authors makes it possible for robots to manage archives instead of human, while being cheaper and easier to deploy than existing robots, and has already been tested in the archive storage room of the State Grid maintenance branch in Jiangsu, China, with better results. Social implications The all-in-one archive access robot can replace existing robotic access solutions, promote intelligent management of the archive industry and the construction of unmanned archive repositories and provide ideas for the development of robots for accessing book-like materials. Originality/value This study explores the use of robots to identify and access archives without changing archive shelves or installing auxiliary devices. In this way, the robot can be quickly applied to the storage room to improve the efficiency of archive management.

Signal Parameters Estimation and Optimization Using Mobile Navigation Data

In the management and evaluation of traffic network, signal parameters are important for monitoring and evaluating the operation state and the traffic capacity of intersection. However, a wide range of real-time signal timing schemes lacks a clear and effective method. In this paper, we propose the signal parameter calculation method based on mobile navigation data. Then, the possibility of crossing intersection passing time of the stop line is studied. The time differences between passing times of different cycles are distributed periodically that several peaks appear cycle by cycle. The relationship between sampling rate and relative error is discussed. Combined with the distribution peak normality test, the appropriate distribution peak is selected through the actual case. The cycle lengths and effective red time parameters are calculated and compared with the known signal parameters. The result demonstrates the proposed method has high accuracy and provides data support for the research of the traffic management.

A Panoramic Localizer Based on Coarse-to-Fine Descriptors for Navigation Assistance

Visual Place Recognition (VPR) addresses visual instance retrieval tasks against discrepant scenes and gives precise localization. During a traverse, the captured images (query images) would be traced back to the already existing positions in the database images, rendering vehicles or pedestrian navigation devices distinguish ambient environments. Unfortunately, diverse appearance variations can bring about huge challenges for VPR, such as illumination changing, viewpoint varying, seasonal cycling, disparate traverses (forward and backward), and so on. In addition, the majority of current VPR algorithms are designed for forward-facing images, which can only provide with narrow Field of View (FoV) and come with severe viewpoint influences. In this paper, we propose a panoramic localizer, which is based on coarse-to-fine descriptors, leveraging panoramas for omnidirectional perception and sufficient FoV up to 360∘. We adopt NetVLAD descriptors in the coarse matching in a panorama-to-panorama way, for their robust performances in distinguishing different appearances, utilizing Geodesc keypoint descriptors in the fine stage in the meantime, for their capacity of detecting detailed information, formatting powerful coarse-to-fine descriptors. A comprehensive set of experiments is conducted on several datasets including both public benchmarks and our real-world campus scenes. Our system is proved to be with high recall and strong generalization capacity across various appearances. The proposed panoramic localizer can be integrated into mobile navigation devices, available for a variety of localization application scenarios.

Мобильные навигационные комплексы на отечественных суперярких светодиодах для освоения Арктики

Рассмотрен потенциал возможностей светотехнических мобильных навигационных комплексов, обеспечивающих дальний привод летательных аппаратов по глиссаде. Основа комплекса – ​суперяркие монохромные светодиоды производства компании ООО «НПЦ ОЭП «ОПТЭЛ». Для сравнения характеристик светодиодов для задач навигации выбран новый параметр – ​распределение освещенности в плоскости, перпендикулярной оптической оси светодиода. Параметр влияет на массо-­габаритные и тактико-­технические характеристики проектируемых изделий. The article discusses the possibility of creating lighting mobile navigation systems that provide long-range drive of aircraft along the glide path. System base – ​monochrome LEDs of LLC SPCOD “OPTEL”. A new parameter was proposed for navigation issues – ​the distribution of illumination in a plane perpendicular to the optical axis of the LED. The parameter affects the overall dimensions and tactical and technical characteristics of the designed products.