It’s a long way to Monte-Carlo: probabilistic display in GPS navigation

Williamson, J., Strachan, S. and Murray-Smith, R. (2006) It’s a long way to Monte-Carlo: probabilistic display in GPS navigation. In: Proceedings of the 8th Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services, Helsinki, Finland, 12-15 September 2006, pp. 89-96. ISBN 1595933905 (doi: 10.1145/1152215.1152234)

Abstract

We present a mobile, GPS-based multimodal navigation system, equipped with inertial control that allows users to explore and navigate through an augmented physical space, incorporating and displaying the uncertainty resulting from inaccurate sensing and unknown user intentions. The system propagates uncertainty appropriately via Monte Carlo sampling and predicts at a user-controllable time horizon. Control of the Monte Carlo exploration is entirely tilt-based. The system output is displayed both visually and in audio. Audio is rendered via granular synthesis to accurately display the probability of the user reaching targets in the space. We also demonstrate the use of uncertain prediction in a trajectory following task, where a section of music is modulated according to the changing predictions of user position with respect to the target trajectory. We show that appropriate display of the full distribution of potential future users positions with respect to sites-of-interest can improve the quality of interaction over a simplistic interpretation of the sensed data.

• Item Type: Conference Proceedings
• Additional Information: © ACM, 2006. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of ACM for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Proceedings of the 8th conference on Human-computer interaction with mobile devices and services http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1152215.1152234
• Keywords: GPS, navigation, uncertainty, Monte Carlo, feedback.
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Murray-Smith, Professor Roderick and Williamson, Dr John
• Authors: Williamson, J., Strachan, S., and Murray-Smith, R.
• Subjects: Q Science > QA Mathematics > QA75 Electronic computers. Computer science; Q Science > QA Mathematics > QA76 Computer software
• College/School: College of Science and Engineering > School of Computing Science
• Publisher: ACM Press
• ISBN: 1595933905
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2006 ACM Press
• First Published: First published in Proceedings of the 8th Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher.