Location Aware Information System(LAIS)

Neftali AlverioBryan HalterJeff CardilloBrian Reed

Advisor: Prof. Tilman Wolf

LAIS Project Overview

• Provide location specific information on wireless PDA– Maps, businesses, events, etc.

– Updates as you travel

• Example:– Campus tour with wireless client

• Required:– Pocket PC

– GPS device

– Internet access (wireless Ethernet or cellular)

LAIS Project Diagram

Database Design

Database Challenges

• Store location relevant information– Ranges instead of points– Large amount of information

• Efficiently query any point in the world

• Map the spherical Earth into database tables

World Subdivision

Our Cell: 1…Our Cell: 14…

Quadrant 1

Quadrant 4Quadrant 3

Quadrant 2

Cell Algorithm• Used by Scavenger & Server• Matching Latitudes & Longitudes to cells

1. Divides current cell into 4 equal pieces2. Select sub-cell by comparing Latitude & Longitude3. Repeated 16 times

• UMass Engineering Quad – 1411223332432413 • Width of cells thins out towards the poles• Find set of cells for a user given range

Local cells

Database Design

• 16 layers for data of different sizes– Finest resolution is 1/3 mile x 1/3 mile

• To store and retrieve information– Cell number is key to data– Need to calculate cell number from geographic coordinates

• Separation of locations and their information– One to many relationship

Location Finder

LAIS Location FinderChallenges

• Admin specifies location and type of information• Example:

– Banks in Amherst, MA 01003

• Challenge:– Getting GPS coordinates for address

• Commercial solutions:– Microsoft MapPoint.NET ($5,000 for student license)

• Web sources:– superpages.com and gps.algebra.com

Location Finder ProcessLocation Finder ProcessFinding Locations using superpages.comFinding Locations using superpages.com

http://yp107.superpages.com/listings.phtml?SRC=&STYPE=D&PG=L&RLO=&RLT=&CB=&C=&N=&RR=5&AL=&RE=&RT=[City]&RS=[State]&RZ=[ZipCode]&R=D&search=Find+It

URL used will have actual city state and zip filled in where red text apears

Sample of a resulting webpage with links to categories

Location Finder ProcessLocation Finder ProcessFinding Locations using superpages.comFinding Locations using superpages.com

• Search for listings on superpages.com based on admin preferences

• Use form post method per area for listings

• Parse source code to extract listings.

Sample webpage of location results for a category type.

Location Finder ProcessLocation Finder ProcessAcquiring Cell Number and GPS Acquiring Cell Number and GPS

CoordinatesCoordinates

• Break address into 2 parts after first comma from previous process.

• 253 Triangle St, Amherst, MA 01002 becomes

• 253 Triangle St

• Amherst, MA 01002

• Feed into gps.algebra site via form post

• Parse results for Latitude and Longitude.

http://gps.algebra.com/?addr1=253 Triangle St&addr2=Amherst, MA 01002

LAIS Information

Information Retrieval

Purpose• Obtain information

about locations from web

• Update automatically• Require minimal

human intervention

Challenges• Web pages lack well

defined form• All relevant data is not

in one section• HTML page not well

suited to output

Parsing Steps

Remove all but useful sections

Remove HTML Tags

Remove tabs and carriage returns

Remove extra spaces

Store to the database

Syntax Recognition

Raw HTML<br> </td> </tr> <tr>

<td width="50%" bgcolor="#ffffff"><font face="Arial"><font color="#800000"><a href="http://www.ecs.umass.edu/ece/lectures/martinez.html"> Jose Martinez

</a> </font></font> <br> <i><font

color="#800000"> University of Illinois/Urbana-Champaign, Computer Science </font></i> <br><i><font color="#800000"> Title: Speculative Shared-Memory Architectures</font></i> <br><font color="#800000"> February 25, 4:00 p.m., 132 Marston</font> <br> <fontcolor="#800000"></font>&nbsp;</td> <td><br>

Desired OutputJose Martinez University of Illinois/Urbana-Champaign, Computer Science Title: Speculative Shared-Memory Architectures February 25, 4:00 p.m., 132 Marston

Syntax RuleToken: <br>Sections before: 3Sections after: 0

Data storage• Data is stored in a table

corresponding to the layer on which the location it refers to exists.

• Data is stored with a type, entry date, reference URL, referred to location

LAIS Client/Server

Client/Server Interactions

• Client:– Get GPS coordinates– Send request to server via wireless link

• Server:– Receive request– Query database– Generate output map

• Client:– Display page

System Demo

User Login User Preferences

University of Massachusetts Campus

Our location is the W.E.B Dubois library (marked red). Maps with a zoom of 1.5 mi (left), 1 mi (center), and .5 mi

(right)

University of Massachusetts Campus

Same location as before but with a road map shown.

Budget

• Hardware:– PDA ($500)– Server ($2,000) Donated by Microsoft– GPS Unit ($300)– Wireless Access Points ($150)

• Software– Visual Studio .NET– Microsoft SQL Server

• Submitted grant to Microsoft– Microsoft funds everything excluding the GPS