Design and Implementation Guidance Mobile Application

Design and Implementation Guidance Mobile Application

1,2_{Computer Eng. Dept., University of Technology, Baghdad}

Abstract:

By developing the mobile applications, the mobile device becomes more important and its usage is increasing day after day in many our life’s fields like communication, business, trade, tourist…..etc. making the life easy. So this paper presents a developed mobile application installed on the user’s phone used to build an intelligent guide system uses in many important institutions such as tourist, trade, education and health institutions. The proposed application works as personal guide which provides information about any offered item to the visitor without needing to the human help. The presented mobile application delivers the necessary guide information to the visitors in two format: text and audio to the visitor in any language when it is used in places present their items for showing only such as museums, galleries, libraries and so on. But when it is executed in places offering their items for shopping such as market, it enhances the customer’s shopping experience by facilitating his/her movement inside the market, avoiding wasting time for billing purpose and providing different ways for payment beside delivering guide information. The proposed guide system is designed and implemented with the help of the other technologies such QR code and Raspberry Pi3 to provide a complete automatic guide system. The constructed system proofed its efficiency in performance by providing the required information easily and quickly in any preferred language and format, in addition avoiding the network congestion.

Keywords: QR technology, Museum Application, Market Application, Guide System, Raspberry Pi3 Introduction:

Some institutions such as museums, markets, galleries, libraries achieved considerable growth in their visitors. This because of the increasing in the population density and the curiosity of the people

check out line. The presented system comprises of Cart location detection unit (CLDU), User Interface and display unit (UIDU), Server Communication unit (SCU) and Billing and Inventory management unit (BIMU). CLDU is used to estimate the position of the cart inside the market to obtain relevant product information. SCU is establishing the connection between the cart and the main server. UIDU provides the customer with user interface to display the information and select the required product and BIMU deals with the billing and inventory management in collaboration with the SCU.

In 2014, Gabriel Villarrubia et al. [3] published a paper presents indoor positioning system based on the fusion of information from multiple sensors on a smartphone. The system delivers the related information based on the position of the visitors inside the museum, where that position is estimated depending on the strongest received Wi-Fi signal from multiple access points (APs) which can be found by using fingerprint technique. When the visitor arrives the museum his/her location is estimated by the location system and a list includes images of possible items at that position is formed, the developed application on his/her smartphone serves as an audio-guide providing information about the selected item from the list.

In 2014, Abdelaziz El Mahboul [13] presented a thesis proposes smart system for grocery industry. The system comprises: a computerized shopping cart tablet with RFID reader for scanning the attached barcode tag on the product; communication links; and server to store the product and bill information. The tablet is fixed on the shopping cart and displays product information like price, ingredients, daily offers, cashier status, advertisements…..etc. when the product is placed in the cart. Based on these information the customer builds his/her shopping list and uses his/her smart-card on that tablet for payment. So shopping process is done by the customer in a convenient way without waiting at long queue or asking anyone about the product’s information. Tagging technique is also used to construct guide system because it can identify the item and provide details about it. Different tagging techniques are available such as QR code (Quick Response), Barcode, NFC (Near Field Communication)…etc. as cleared in [5].

So the researchers exploited this technologies in their proposed systems to provide guide information for example in 2015, Safari Mohammad and Andalib Azam [6] published article proposes model system able to deliver more information about the presented feed in the restaurant menu and the restaurant itself, in addition provides bill payment facilities through bank portal by using the customer’s mobile phone. In this system the customer scans the QR codes on the menu to view the details of each food and then make his/her order, the proposed system receives that order, calculates the bill, sends that order to the kitchen staff for preparing the dish and sends the bill to the customer. The system is also provide interesting entertainments to customers during the waiting time between the ordering and delivering.

In 2016, Mansi Mhaske et al. [7], proposed a smart shopping system based on NFC (Near Field Communication) technology and Android mobile application. The proposed system uses to support the customer with product information and provide electronic payment facility. All the product in the market are attached by NFC tags which includes information about that products and an Android mobile application is developed to read that tag. When the customer scans the product’s tag the mobile device and placed in the cart, s/he gets details about that product at the same time the product information is sent to the main server for updating and calculating the total bill. Then the total bill information will be sent to a device attached to the customer’s cart for displaying it on smart phone screen which can be paid electronically.

In 2017, Muhib A. Lambay et al. [8] proposed an automated system that delivers the product information to the customer and eliminates the waiting time wasted in scanning each product for payment at the cashier by utilizing barcode technology. The proposed system equips the shopping cart by barcode scanner which scans the barcode tag of the product when it is placed in the cart, detail information about that product is fetched from the market’s server to display it on the customer’s mobile phone. At the same time the customer’s bill is updated and displayed on the mall’s computer.

serve. The visitor uses his/her mobile phone to read the QR tag which is attached on different places inside the library, the QR links the visitor to the resources of information which may be: details about books, movement directions information, library exhibitions like Videos, Audios, and websites, text messages for reference service and contact information of library staff as well as library patrons…..etc.

Konlakorn Wongpatikaseree et al. [10] presented in 2018 a traceability system in farms, the system manages the plants and trees inside the farm by monitoring such as temperature, humidity, water, PH…etc. and takes an appropriate action then records the status of each plant in the server by using IoT technology. When the customer visits the farm to buy some plants s/he can check the status of each by using his/her smart mobile to read the QR tag of each plant, where the QR tag provides the necessary information which gives the customer greater confidence in the product.

The proposed guide system in this paper is very close to the works [8], [9] and [10], which is delivering information about any item inside trade, tourist, education…etc. to the visitor. The proposed system uses QR tagging technology, mobile application, XAMP server and Raspberry Pi3 which works as access point and local server in order to avoid the congestion in the network. The paper takes the market and the museum as case studies to implement the proposed system.

The Proposed System Construction

As maintained the system consists of five important elements:

1) QR Tag:It is 2D barcode invented in 1994 to encode large amount of data [11], it is much easy way to access the information quickly with the help of QR scanner installed on the smart phone. Beside that it can be generated easily by using one of the available online QR generator [12] and attached on the offered items.

2) Mobile Application:The mobile application in this work is designed by Android Studio IDE (Integrated Development Environment) to work on the android operating system [13]. The developed application decodes QR code, sends request to the server, receives information (text or audio) from the server

and displays it on the phone’s screen, sends user’s phone MAC address, get unique ID for each user.

3) Raspberry Pi3: Pi3B is exploited in this paper because it has faster processor and wireless LAN and Bluetooth connectivity which provide powerful connected designs. Raspberry Pi provides access points that enables the visitor to interact with the proposed system and a local server saves brief database to avoid the network congestion.

4) Main Server: HP laptop with XAMP software are used as main server saves the details about all offered items inside the institutions in addition the visitor’s information. The main server’s records are accessed by the administration for analysis purpose.

5) Switch: An electronic network device used to connect all access points together with the main server, this is necessary when the system is implemented over whole aspects of the building in order to provide wide Wi-Fi coverage.

All these elements are connected together to form the proposed system as shown in Figure (1).

Figure (1) The Hardware Connection of the Proposed System

Figure (2) Market Block Diagram

Figure (3) Museum Block Diagram The Proposed System Implementation

This work takes the mall and the museum as study cases to check if the desired results and performance are got from the implementation of the proposed system.

A- Museum

Each offered piece in the museum is attached with QR tag and its information is stored at the server. For example Feunte Magna Bowel and David Vases are offered in the museum, firstly QR tags are generated form them as cleared in table (1).

Table (1) Generating QR tag for Offered Items Offered

Items IdentificationText QR Code Feunte

Magna Bowel

Bowel1

David

Vases Bowel2

The offered items information are saved briefly at the local server and in details at the main server as shown in Figure (4). When the visitor enters the museum s/he connects to the available network and follow the below procedures.

(a)

(b)

Figure (4) Database of the Offered Items (a- At the Local Server, b- At the Main server)

each visitor who connected to the system. Figure (5) shows that.

2. Select the Preferable Language: The application shows a list of language, so the visitor can select his/her origin language to view the information. See figure (6).

3. Scan the QR tag of the Item and Get Brief Information: By using the SCAN button, brief information from the local server will send and displayed on the screen as shown in figure (7).

4. Get More Details in Audio Format: By clicking on MORE Details button as illustrated in figure (8).

5. End the Tour:After the visitor ends his/her tour inside the museum s/he can exit from the application by clicking on END TOUR button and leave, this informs the admin about the visitor’s leaving as shown in figure (9).

6. Admin Report: The administration can extract reports from the main server such which the most items have been reviewed what each visitor viewed as cleared in figure (10).

Figure (5) Getting Visitor’s ID

(a) (b)

(c) (d)

Figure (6) Selecting Language (a- Arabic Interface, b- German Interface, c- French

Interface)

(a) (b)

(c)

Figure (7) Scan and Get Breif Information ( a-Scan the QR code, b- Get information in English,

(a) (b)

Figure (8) Get Details in Audio Format (a- In English, b- In Arabic)

Figure (9) Ending the Tour Inside the Museum

Figure (10) Museum’s Admin Reports B- Mall

The paper takes many products as cleared in the table (2) as examples to implment the system and get the results.

Table (2) QR for Mall Products Offered

Items IdentificationText QR Code Water

Battle1L Water1L

Tea1Kg Tea1Kg

Coat-40Size Coat40

The customer follows the following stpes when s/he arrives the mall and connect to the proposed system:

1. Run the Application and Get Unique ID: Same procedure in the museum.

2. Scan the QR tag of the Item and Get Brief Information:See figure (11).

3. Get More Details:Shown in figure (11). 4. Add to Shopping List: When the customer

deciedes to reserve the product, s/he can it to his/her shopping list by clicking ADD TO CART button then entering the qauntity as shown in figure (12). This process compenstaes of using the real phisycal cart to reserve the products.

5. Buy the Product:If the customer decides to buy the product, s/he can choose on of the payment way ByCash or ByBankAccount suported by the shopping list as illustrated in figure (13).

6. Cahier Report: When the customer ends his/her shopping, it is very important to inform the casheir what each customer’s shopping list in dorder to preper the order and deliver it to the customer’s home, at the same time checking their payment as shown in figure (14).

analysis the customer’s behaver in order to enhance the institution’s performance, figure (15) clears these reports.

(a) (b)

(c)

Figure (11) Scan&Get Breif and Detail Information (a- Scan QR tag, b- Get information,

c- Details)

(a) (b)

Figure (12) Adding the Product to the List (a-Enter the quantity number, b- Shopping list)

Figure (13) Buy Options suported by the Shopping list

Figure (14) Casheir Report

Conculsion:

By developing a sutiable mobile application, the mobile devices can be utilized as guide in different instituitons such as museums, markets, galleries ….etc. In such instituitions the visitor wants to know information about the offered items which is not provided adequately by human guide, espceially in rush hours the human guide becames un available for each visitor. In this paper the developed mobile application can be explioted in design an automatic guide system by the help of idendentification technologies like QR code. The proposed system delivers information in text or audio format to the visitor, in addition it provides a good shopping experince for the customers by: elimiating the time wasted at check out points for paymeny, eliminating the use of physical real cart which enhances the customer’s movement and providing delivering proporties for the pruchased products to the home. The proposed system is built by using: mobile application, QR code, Raspberry Pi3, servers and switch. The presented system explioted the Raspberry Pi3 to provide Wi-Fi access points to the network and local servers, this makes the information to be delivered firstly as breif information, then in detailed if the customer is more interested in item. This propoerty avoids the network congestion problem and allows access the information quickly.

References:

1- Claire Swedberg “Drents Museum Uses RFID to Create a Personalized Visitor Experience”, Assen, 2013.

2- Zeeshan Ali and Reena Sonkusare “RFID Based Smart Shopping and Billing”, Mumbai, India, ISSN (Print): 2319-5940, Vol. 2, Issue 12, 2013. 3- Gabriel Villarrubia, Juan F. De Paz, F. De La Prieta and Javier Bajo”Hybrid Indoor Location System for Museum Tourist Routes in Augmented Reality”, IEEE 17th _{International Conference on}

Information, Fusion, Salamanca, Spain, July 2014. 4- Abdelaziz El Mahboul “SMART SHOPPING CART SYSTEM”, Bachelor's thesis Turku university of applied science, Business Academy, 2014.

5- Mabel Vazquez-Briseno, Francisco I. Hirata, Juan de Dios Sanchez-Lopez, Elitania Jimenez-Garcia, Christian Navarro-Cota and Juan Ivan Nieto-Hipolito “Using RFID/NFC and QR-Code in Mobile Phones to Link the Physical and the Digital World”,

Autonomous University of Baja California, Mexico, 2012.

6- Safari Mohammad, Andalib Azam “A model for ordering in restaurant based on QR Code without presence of a waiter at the table” article in International Academic Journal of Innovative Research, Vol. 2, No. 12, 2015, pp. 1-9.

7- Mansi Mhaske, Mayuri Sawant, Ekta Bhattad, Amruta Gaikwad and Manoj Mulik “ Smart Shopping System Android Application”, International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer Science and Software Engineering, IEEE, Volume 6, Issue 11, November 2016.

8- Muhib A. Lambay, Abhishek Shinde, Anupam Tiwari and Vicky Sharma “, Automated Billing Cart”, International Journal of Computer Science Trends and Technology, India, volume 5 Issue 2, Mar – Apr 2017.

9- Lambodara Parabhoi, Nivedita Bhattacharjya and Rupashree Dhar “Use of QR Code in Library”, Applications of Modern Tools and Technology in Library Services book, Studera Press, Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla, January 2017. 10- Konlakorn Wongpatikaseree, Promprasit Kanka and Arunee Ratikan, “Developing Smart Farm and Traceability System for Agricultural Products using IoT Technology”, IEEE/ACIS 17th International Conference on Computer and Information Science (ICIS), Singapore, 2018.

11- Sumit Tiwari, “An Introduction To QR Code Technology”, IEEE International Conference on Information Technology, India, 22-24 Dec. 2016. 12- “QR Code Generator”, [online], accessed at 17-Oct-2018 at 12:30 AM, available on:

https://www.the-qrcode-generator.com/.