Disciplines
Computer Engineering | Mechanical Engineering | Navigation, Guidance, Control and Dynamics
Abstract (300 words maximum)
Navigation services play a big role in everyone’s daily lives, from directing them on new roads to guiding them through buildings. Outdoor navigation services have evolved from physical maps to digital ones like Google Maps for ease of use and accessibility. Upon conducting literature research, the team found that many navigation apps lack clear and accurate instructions for how to navigate university campuses such as Marietta campus. Due to the size of KSU’s Marietta campus and its buildings, effortless navigation has been a common challenge for students, faculty, and visitors alike. Additionally, all buildings are referred to by letters, numbers, and official titles, and keeping track of these different names has been a challenge. We hypothesize that by developing a navigation app for KSU’s Marietta campus, ease of navigation will increase for its users. We developed our navigation app using the Flutter framework, built on Dart (programming language), with Google Maps as the foundation. We collected the coordinates of each building on campus and organized them in an SQLite database. When a user selects a destination via the search menu or the marker, the navigation app will pull the coordinates from the user’s current location and the SQLite database to find the shortest path between them. We successfully tested the app for outdoor campus navigation and work is in progress for an indoor algorithm to facilitate inside building navigation. We use A* algorithm, which is an efficient pathfinding technique, along a gridded floor plan to map a clear path from the user’s starting point to their destination. Our goal is to continue creating indoor navigation for more buildings in the Marietta campus. We expect the final product of this app, OwlTrails, to make the Marietta campus simpler to navigate for students, faculty, and visitors.
Academic department under which the project should be listed
SPCEET - Robotics and Mechatronics Engineering
Primary Investigator (PI) Name
Dr. Turaj Ashuri
Symposium of Scholars Presentation
Included in
Computer Engineering Commons, Mechanical Engineering Commons, Navigation, Guidance, Control and Dynamics Commons
Campus Navigator: A Mobile App for Seamless University Navigation
Navigation services play a big role in everyone’s daily lives, from directing them on new roads to guiding them through buildings. Outdoor navigation services have evolved from physical maps to digital ones like Google Maps for ease of use and accessibility. Upon conducting literature research, the team found that many navigation apps lack clear and accurate instructions for how to navigate university campuses such as Marietta campus. Due to the size of KSU’s Marietta campus and its buildings, effortless navigation has been a common challenge for students, faculty, and visitors alike. Additionally, all buildings are referred to by letters, numbers, and official titles, and keeping track of these different names has been a challenge. We hypothesize that by developing a navigation app for KSU’s Marietta campus, ease of navigation will increase for its users. We developed our navigation app using the Flutter framework, built on Dart (programming language), with Google Maps as the foundation. We collected the coordinates of each building on campus and organized them in an SQLite database. When a user selects a destination via the search menu or the marker, the navigation app will pull the coordinates from the user’s current location and the SQLite database to find the shortest path between them. We successfully tested the app for outdoor campus navigation and work is in progress for an indoor algorithm to facilitate inside building navigation. We use A* algorithm, which is an efficient pathfinding technique, along a gridded floor plan to map a clear path from the user’s starting point to their destination. Our goal is to continue creating indoor navigation for more buildings in the Marietta campus. We expect the final product of this app, OwlTrails, to make the Marietta campus simpler to navigate for students, faculty, and visitors.