Omniguider - The Next Generation of GPS Navigation System

INTRODUCTION GPS navigational system belongs to an application of Location Based Service(LBS). However, navigational information provided by the conventional GPS navigation system is not adequately intuitive to a user. Moreover, the environment often affects the accuracy of a hardware sensor in a GPS navigation system, so as to make users to frequently stay in a disorientation status during navigation. The scenario owes that the navigation map provided by the conventional GPS system is not always consistent with a user's cognitive map. The navigation map [1] refers to navigational guidance with its related geographical information derived from conventional paper charts or electronic maps. Developed by Tolman in 1948 [2], the cognitive map refers to the ability of the human subconscious to accumulate and construct spatial and temporal information. This ability implies the type of mental processing through a series of psychological transformations. Consequently, an individual can acquire, code, store, recall and decode information regarding the relative locations and attributes of phenomena in their daily or metaphorical spatial environment. Namely, a cognitive map allows humans to sense and identify the environment where they reside. This map is derived from the accumulation of humans' familiarity and perceptions while wandering in their living spaces. Hence, a navigation system largely depends on consistency of the navigation map and cognitive map in terms of performance. From the standpoint of navigational user interface, the continuum of the GPS system development can be sketched out as below diagram. This figure can also be viewed as illustrating the history of navigation systems regarding user's mental cognition from the past until now. This continuum has two implications. First, the view of a discrete navigation continuum exhibits the evolvement of GPS navigation, along with technology progress, from the simple 2D electronic map, simulated 3D electronic map with synthetic view, to the live-view navigation. However, the perspective of continuous navigation continuum reveals the efforts of providing sufficient navigational information from the previous simple 2D electronic map to a simulated 3D electronic map accompanied with an emulated landscape image. Although attempting to provide users with more intuitive information by multi-windows of a simulated scene, the latest navigation system fails to solve the mental rotation problem and even further increases the users' mental burden.