Many people have experienced getting lost at shopping malls, stores, airports, parking lots - or when wandering through museum exhibitions. STMicroelectronics, a global semiconductor leader serving customers across the spectrum of electronics applications and the leading supplier of MEMS (Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems) for consumer and portable applications,[1] has worked with the Museum of Contemporary Art in Taipei to enrich the experience of visitors to Taiwan-based Chinese film-director King Hu’s works exhibition through the use of indoor navigation.
This technology transforms mobile phones and other smart consumer devices into the most convenient source of real-time information about the exhibition, overcoming the limitation of satellite navigation in indoor spaces.
Accurate indoor positioning is the key enabler for Location-Based Services, widely considered the next “killer application” in the mobile world. ST and CSR have integrated ST’s optimized MEMS devices with CSR’s latest positioning technology to produce a highly accurate and reliable indoor-positioning system that overcomes the challenge of poor GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite Systems) visibility in urban canyons and indoor environments. The cross-industry cooperation between ST and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Taipei puts an exhibition guide on the visitors’ smart phone, letting them better experience the art of director King Hu’s movies. The system navigates visitors through the collection and automatically plays audio information as the user approaches each exhibit.
“Indoor navigation will make the interaction between people and their mobile devices simpler and more direct, opening a new era of smart consumer life-style. The combination of our accurate indoor-navigation technology with the latest exhibition of Museum of Contemporary Art in Taipei showcases the power of this innovation,” said Patrick Boulaud, STMicroelectronics Regional Vice President, Analog, MEMS and Sensors, Greater China and South Asia Region.
“The joint project with ST on indoor positioning and navigation integrates art with technology in a truly innovative manner,” said Jui-Jen Shi, Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Taipei. “The museum is dedicated to exploring new possibilities and establishing new values for contemporary art through closer cross-industry cooperation that encourages greater creative development in both domains.”
Demonstrated as the world’s most accurate indoor-positioning system at Mobile World Congress 2012, the ST/CSR technology can reliably determine the location of a mobile device to within a few meters in the absence of GNSS satellite signals. In complicated indoor environments such as airport terminals, exhibition halls, warehouses, supermarkets, libraries and underground parking lots, the technology meets the accuracy needs for many of the emerging Location-Based Services.
[1] IHS iSuppli: H2 2011 Consumer and Mobile MEMS Market Tracker, February 2012.