‘Mobile’: Creating new levels of mobility

Kleve/Kamp-Lintfort, March 19, 2015: The ultimate goal of the project ‘Mobile – mobil im Leben’ is to provide better and easier access to public transportation for people with cognitive or physical disabilities. One way the project team is achieving this is by developing an easy to use ‘mobile navigator’ that accompanies the user and provides helpful guidance along the way. It tells the user, for example, which stop to look for, helps identify the right bus to take, and prompts the user to get on/off the bus. Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences and other project partners will be showcasing the project through March 20 at CeBIT 2015 in Hannover in the NRW joint stand (Hall 9, D24).

CeBIT visitors are welcome to stop by and see the system in action in a specially-contructed simulation of a bus commute. The project team is also presenting a variety of other project developments, such as purposefully designed user interfaces for navigation and route planning, positioning functions utilising optical markers, bluetooth beacons, NFC, RFID as well as wearable gadgets.

“The navigation system can be flexibly customised to each person’s individual needs, which allows it to make a significant contribution to the promotion of social inclusion for people with disabilities. With help from the system, people with disabilities can use public transportation confidently and independently, thus overcoming current barriers to entry”, notes project lead Professor Christian Ressel of Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences

The system was specifically designed to be simple and intuitive, even for people without literacy skills. The project maintains a number of project focus areas, including the development of suitable user interfaces for people with disabilities and providing effective assistance through the use of augmented reality and avatar technology. Other research focus areas of the project include developing technical solutions for navigating and position finding, reliably identifying vehicles and stops electronically, developing interfaces which incorporate real-time information feeds, as well as the overall development of the system architecture itself.

Visitors to the project exhibit at CeBIT have been extremely curious to learn more about the gadgets and demonstrations being conducted. Visitors have also provided valuable feedback to the project team, which has lead to new ideas and usage concepts for the system.

‘Mobile – mobil im Leben’ is a co-operative project between Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences, Niederrhein University of Applied Sciences, the Krefeld-based transport service SWK mobil GmbH, Bielefeld-based moBiel GmbH, Bielefeld-based v. Bodelschwingh Foundation Bethel, and the health service provider salvea/inoges AG in Krefeld.

At CeBIT:

Project ‘Mobile – mobil im Leben’ in Hall 9, stand D24

http://mobil-im-leben.org

For more information about the project, please contact:

Lead Researcher – Prof. Dr.-Ing. Christian Ressel

Phone: +49 (02842) 90825-241

christian.ressel@hochschule-rhein-waal.de