Publication
Exploring the Usage of an Electronic Compass for Human Navigation in Extreme Environments
Sven Gehring; Markus Löchtefeld; Johannes Schöning; Antonio Krüger
In: Multimodal Location Based Techniques for Extreme Navigation. Haptimap Workshop, located at In conjunction with Pervasive 2010, May 17, Helsinki, Finland, 2010.
Abstract
In this paper we present novel concepts for using the com- pass to allow navigation of humans in two “extreme” envi- ronments. First, we present a prototype that allows indoor navigation without additional infrastructure. In a second scenario we focus on how compass deviation can be used to allow positioning in the vertical domain to design a location- based service (LBS) for climbers. Both scenarios look very contrary, but have in common, that in both environments the disadvantages of the Global Positing System (GPS) does not allow supporting users with location information. GPS cannot be used indoors (in most cases) and the position in z-direction (i.e. height) is very inaccurate, which is crucial for the climbing scenarios. To overcome these disadvantages we propose to use an electronic compass in both scenarios.