2 seconds to locate people

It only takes 2 seconds to identify a person, or object in the building, supermarket . This is the research topic of Nguyen An Khuong (Cambridge University) and is considered to be highly practical.

In 2010, Nguyen An Khuong (1988), a former student of Le Quy Don specialized school, was recommended by the Danang City People's Committee to the United Kingdom to study Master at Cambridge University.

Here, Khuong began to study and complete the scientific topic 'Locating people (or objects) in a closed building through robots and Bluetooth waves'.

A good idea

Khuong said that the basic principle of the topic is to use Bluetooth waves and robots to build a system to locate people or objects inside closed houses. The idea of ​​the topic comes from Khuong's discovery of the limitations of GPS - in some advanced countries today, GPS satellites are used to locate vehicles and airplanes outside.

That is, GPS satellite waves cannot pass through the structure of the building, the furniture itself also affects the waves. Second, satellite waves have an accuracy of about 10 meters, which is not useful for positioning in small spaces in the house, when the accuracy required is up to centimeters.

Robot researched and manufactured by Khuong (Photo provided by Nguyen An Khuong)

After several months of research, Khuong has overcome the above disadvantages with an indoor positioning system with the maximum use of phone waves, which is a popular and very compact device today. Khuong used a robot designed to carry a laptop on his back. The robot will automatically move to every location in the house and record the wave situation at each location into a wave database.

According to Khuong, to install this system for a building requires 2 basic steps. First, the robot is located in any position in the room. The robot will automatically move to every position in the room to create a wave database. This process only needs to be done once for each new building. Then, in the second step, a computer contains a database from the robot that receives the request from the user in the home. The computer updates phone wave characteristics at the user's current location and then searches in the database to determine the location of the person. Time to search for objects is usually no more than 2 seconds.

High efficiency, low cost

'From Khuong's topic, we carried out and installed a test robot system for a corridor of computer lab at Cambridge University. Khuong's robot is designed with high automation, self-avoiding obstacles in the room, 'commented Dr. Robert Harle (Cambridge University-Khuong instructor).

Regarding funding issues, it can be said that this is the cheapest solution today because it takes advantage of the mobile phone that people often use. The cost of materials for designing robots at about 300 USD is very economical compared to existing indoor navigation systems. On the other hand, this system has very high accuracy with error of less than 50cm error.

In particular, the system can be applied on a large scale in the supermarket, when users can use the phone wave immediately to know the booth they need to visit on the floor, know exactly what items they want to buy at Which compartment is in the store cabinet. In hospitals with thousands of patients and doctors who have to travel regularly, just through this system of devices, doctors can accurately locate the patient (especially the elderly with dementia) who are staying. where.

At the international scientific conference on programming language psychology PPIG 2011 held in the UK in early September 2011, among the 20 scientific reports of co-authors are professors and doctors from the above universities Khuong is the youngest and only reporter of Asia. Although not yet a doctor, but the scientific report is extended from the topic: 'Locating people (or objects) in a closed building through Robot and Bluetooth waves' by Khuong was highly appreciated. and awarded excellent awards.