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Vertically Integrated Projects - WING (Way-finding and Indoor Navigation Guide)

VIPs create sustainable, research-engaged communities of staff and students - both undergraduate and postgraduate - who work collaboratively on live projects.

WING is a web app that guides students, staff and visitors from outside a University of Bath building to a specific room inside it. Outdoor navigation apps stop being useful at the door, and finding a room in a large, multi-floor building is a constant source of lost time and stress, especially for new students, visitors and anyone who cannot easily ask for directions or backtrack. There is no continuous tracking and no beacon hardware, only printed codes and floor plans from Estates.

Accessibility is the projects main focus. Routes can avoid stairs and prioritise lifts, ramps and step-free entrances, and we want to evaluate this with real users as a genuine research contribution.

Project Goals;

  • working product across three campus buildings by the end of Semester 1, with real floor plans, QR checkpoints and routing that people can use. After that, we will roll out one campus section at a time.

  • accessible routing a real research contribution. Create routes that adapt to different mobility needs, such as avoiding stairs and prioritising lifts, ramps and accessible entrances.

  • show that a low-infrastructure approach works on a university campus. Checkpoint-based positioning with printed QR codes avoids the cost, battery maintenance and installation burden of beacon systems.

  • turn directions into instructions people can easily follow, and leave a well-documented project that future VIP cohorts can extend across multiple years.

Main research issues:

  • Checkpoint-based indoor positioning: Can QR-code checkpoints provide reliable wayfinding without continuous location tracking, and how effectively can users recover their position after deviating from a route?

  • Checkpoint placement: What density and placement of QR codes provides sufficient confidence and accuracy without creating unnecessary installation and maintenance requirements?

  • Accessible routing: How should routes account for different mobility and accessibility requirements, such as avoiding stairs and prioritising lifts, ramps and accessible entrances?

  • Multi-floor route generation: How can building layouts be represented as connected graphs of rooms, corridors, doors, stairs and lifts to support accurate route calculation across multiple floors? Human-readable directions: How can routes produced by Dijkstra’s or A* algorithm be translated into clear instructions that users can easily follow?

  • Indoor–outdoor transitions: How can the system provide a clear transition between conventional outdoor navigation and indoor routes when journeys involve multiple buildings?

  • Building detail and obstacles: What level of floor-plan and obstacle information is necessary to generate practical routes without making the model unnecessarily complex?

Sustainable Development Goals

SDGs: 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities), SDG 9 (Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure), 10 (Reduced Inequalities)

Academic Director

Adwait Sharma, Department of Computer Science

Project Updates

This is a new project for AY2627

Who can apply?

We welcome students from across the University, if you would like to apply please get in touch directly with [VIPS](mailto:vertically-integrated-projects@bath.ac.uk

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