Location Aware Information System (LAIS) Neftali Alverio Bryan Halter Jeff Cardillo Brian 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 pieces 2.Select sub-cell by comparing Latitude & Longitude 3.Repeated 16 times UMass Engineering Quad – 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 Finder Challenges Admin specifies location and type of information Example: –Banks in Amherst, MA 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 Process Finding Locations using superpages.com LO=&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 Process Finding 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 Process Acquiring Cell Number and GPS Coordinates Break address into 2 parts after first comma from previous process. 253 Triangle St, Amherst, MA becomes 253 Triangle St Amherst, MA Feed into gps.algebra site via form post Parse results for Latitude and Longitude. 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 <a href=" lectures/martinez.html"> Jose Martinez University of Illinois/Urbana-Champaign, Computer Science Title: Speculative Shared-Memory Architectures February 25, 4:00 p.m., 132 Marston Desired Output Jose Martinez University of Illinois/Urbana-Champaign, Computer Science Title: Speculative Shared-Memory Architectures February 25, 4:00 p.m., 132 Marston Syntax Rule Token: Sections before: 3 Sections 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 LoginUser 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