Campus Mobile Navigation System Based on

Shortest-Path Algorithm and Users Collaborations

Shir Ni Ler and Wan Mohd Nazmee Wan Zainon*

School of Computer Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia,

11800 USM, Penang, Malaysia
noblesn@live.com, nazmee@cs.usm.my

Abstract. The main purpose of this paper is to present a research and

development of an intelligent system for mobile phones that can helps users
finding the shortest path from a point-of-interest to another point-of-interest
within Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) main campus. Research is done to
acquire an optimal navigation solution which primary goals is to provide
shortest-path calculation. A mobile application based on Android that allows
user to find a location quickly with minimum effort and collaborate with other
users to enhance the experience of route-planning has been developed.
Preliminary evaluation suggests that the proposed methods and the mobile
application are helpful for the users in finding their point of interest within
shortest time possible.

Keywords: Campus Navigation, Shortest Path Algorithm, Flexible Map

Representation.

1 Introduction

USM main campus spans across a land area of 591.72 acres (240.13 hectares), which
is approximately the dimension of 296 football fields. It has a total of 4 entrances, 25
blocks of in-campus accommodations, 5 administrative centers, 18 cafeterias, 6
campus service centers, 24 centers of excellence, 29 halls, 16 schools, 8 sport
facilities, a mosque, and a museum [1]. Every year, thousands of new students enroll
in this university. These students either take a campus commuter or walk around to
get familiar with campus compound. Visitors in USM might have a hard time
searching for a particular location in the campus. Each and every day, uncountable
numbers of students, staffs, and visitors move around campus compound to perform
tasks by means of walking, cycling, driving, or riding campus commuters.
The main intention of this research is to provide an optimal navigation solution
through mobile application that are able to show a shortest-path calculation that
benefits all USM residents, prospective students and staffs, as well as visitors in terms
of location-search and route-planning. The research aims at building an architecture

*
Corresponding author.

H.-Y. Jeong et al. (eds.), Advances in Computer Science and Its Applications, 791
Lecture Notes in Electrical Engineering 279,
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-41674-3_113, © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2014
792 S.N. Ler and W.M.N
N.W. Zainon

for a mobile campus navig gator that finds the shortest path between any two poiints.
The objectives of this research are:
[1] to study on a fleexible map representation method
[2] to choose a suitaable shortest-path algorithm with collision detection
[3] to develop a prototype
p mobile application that can navigate a speccific
maps based on users
u collaborations

2 Background and
d Related Work

Mobile phones nowadays are embedded with Global Positioning System (GP PS),
Wireless-Fidelity (Wi-Fi), Bluetooth, and so forth. In line with the rapid growthh of
smart phone market, deman nd for location-based service (LBS) is sky-rocketing. Many
tertiary institutions around the world have taken the initiative to research and deveelop
a navigation system for thee campus. Each navigation system proposed or develooped
has different implementatio ons from others ranging for simple web-based navigattion
system with existing map p application programming interface (API) plug-inn to
complex three-dimensionaal (3D) navigation system running on mobile phonnes.
Although the project goal is to develop a campus navigation application for mobbile
phone, the research coverrs also web-based navigation applications as web-baased
campus navigation applicattions are still prevalent. Many useful concepts and theories
of navigation system devellopment were discussed in terms of web-based navigattion
application.
Boyd B., et al. [9] fromm Texas A&M University (TAMU) has built a web-baased
Campus Navigator on top of o Google Map API that comprises three core units i.e. the
web server, the database, and the query server. Multiple transportation modes are
supported. Roadmap is den noted by graphs in which an edge represents a path annd a
vertex represents a point-of-interest. In order to cater multiple transportation moddes,
the authors implemented layering in building roadmap. A feature is added iinto
Campus Navigator to allow w administrator to add, edit, or remove edges at anytime.

Fig. 1. Roadm
map Layering, Sub-layering, and Layers Mapping

This Campus Navigato or is a rather simple navigation system to implem ment.

Basically, it makes use off existing map API. As virtual reality (VR) becomees a
hotspot of research, it openss up a possibility of virtual campus navigation.