The good-old GPS, as it has come to be known, is evolving at fast pace thanks to the endeavors undertaken by those players in the automotive industry which rely on high-tech gadgets for the cars as they do on the cars themselves.
You all know by now the basic goal of the Global Positioning System: guide those who look for comfort, or plain and simple lack the sense of orientation, to the desired destination. In time, the GPS has evolved to provide points of interest, traffic information and much, much more.
There are, however, limitations to the system. Relying 100 percent on the information provided with the maps it uses to fulfill its goal, the GPS lacks, at times, complete info and not few are the places where the display of the device simply goes blue, as it loses track of itself.
But what if the GPS, working together with other systems, would not only be able to guide you through those blind spots, but also point you to the parking spot which suits your needs the best, or even guide you as you exit the car and head out into the great city mall-unknown?
WHAT IS IT
The system, called Pathfinder, is currently being tested on a BMW 3 Series and is aimed to provide complete information to the driver whilst he/she is driving or walking to his/her destination.
To give you an example of what Pathfinder is all about, without telling how it works (we will do that in the chapter below), let's say you are trying to get to the movies and catch the latest blockbuster. Pathfinder will not only guide you to the cinema, but also tell you were you can find an empty parking space and, after you have exited the car, where the cinema is located within the complex you are visiting.
HOW IT WORKS
If the destination has such a microMap, it is then transferred to the GPS on the car, which will now operate on two levels. First, the GPS will get you to the place you want to go. While doing so, it will be careful to tell you what specific lane to take so that when you arrive at your destination, it will be easier for you to chose that single empty parking spot in the car park. Pathfinder does this by using networking camera information, GPS coordinates and map data.
Once the car has been parked, the information about the destination will be transferred to a handheld device which will literally guide your steps to, say, the aforementioned cinema.
“The realistic visualization of a building like a complex multi-storey car park by means of a micro-Navigation card in the Central Information Display of the research prototype gives the user a clear navigation and information advantage that goes significantly beyond the conventional scope of a road navigation solution,” Carsten Isert, BMW's project manager for the microNavigation project says about the system.
CHALLENGES
The essential component of the system, the microMaps which will form the basis of microNavigation are, however, almost absent in today's world. BMW's Research and Technology division is working on it (they've started by mapping the BMW Welt complex in Munich), but it may take them quite some time to map big points of interest in only one city, let alone Europe or the world.Pathfinder will be an integrated system, working together with info it receives from networking cameras as well. Integrating the system into the existing infrastructure will also require more work and funding.
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