Moving To A Secure And Sustainable Smart City Through The Empowerment Of Artificial Intelligence (AI) Wayfinding Solution

In the past 10 years, AI – the abbreviation of Artificial Intelligence has become a trend, more and more people getting familiar with this term and started to apply AI in their daily life and also businesses. Now, AI technology has become one of the key factors in transforming a country’s cities into smart cities. As a developing country, Malaysia has also recognized the importance of digitalization through IoT, AI, blockchain and so on in improving the quality of citizens’ lives and economic growth. Hence, the government has introduced various policies and digital programmes to encourage digital transformation among different industries, so as to realize the vision of becoming a high-tech country by 2030 (iTnews Asia Team, 2021). Up to now, the application of AI technology has started to involve and run in several major industries such as technology, healthcare, banking, marketing, education, etc.

While brainstorming the smart innovation that aims to eventually lead Malaysia to achieving the vision of the government set, V-Series International has discovered the underlying limitations and issues of current the wayfinding solutions in Malaysia, whether it be a traditional static directory board or digital wayfinding kiosk. The traditional directory board or digital wayfinding kiosks are not portable; hence, users must remember the route and directions because they could not bring the directory board or kiosk together with them. This has become a challenge for users who do not have a strong sense of direction (Lee, 2021). This could indirectly cause a bad user experience or leave a bad impression towards the businesses or places. V-Series International discovered this issue faced by the community which sparked the inspiration to design an AI Wayfinding Kiosk which can improve user experience with mobile wayfinding and instant navigation, and at the same time in line with the country’s vision.

Challenges Facing by Users & Business Operators Before Deploy V-Series International AI Wayfinding Solutions

a) Traditional directory boards and digital wayfinding kiosks are not portable.

Because the static printed directory boards and digital wayfinding kiosks are not portable, users have to memorize and remember the route to their intended destination.

b) There are no clear directions or navigation instructions.

Both static printed directory boards and digital wayfinding kiosks do not give clear directions, instructions, and information to the users. It only shows the general route to the destination and what other stores are around. The lack of information and instruction could cause confusion for the users.

c) Inflexible in content updating and management wise.

The static directory boards are inflexible in content changes and updates as the management has to spend extra budget to print a new directory board with the latest information, which is time-consuming and inefficient.

d) No detailed data report on hardware health status and usage tracking.

The conventional digital wayfinding kiosk does not integrate with cloud services, in which hardware health status reports and usage tracking reports can be generated and stored. Hence, there is no instant hardware health status alert is available for the management team, causing them to face difficulties managing and monitoring the operational status of the digital wayfinding kiosk.

e) No big data analysis and deep learning system to study the behavior patterns of users when doing direction searches.

The conventional digital wayfinding kiosk is just a device that provides directory search services for users, without learning the behavioral patterns of users in the search process. As a result, the management and marketers lost an opportunity to learn more about the market and their target audience.

Leading The Community to Fourth Industry Revolution (IR 4.0) with AI and Big Data Analytics Technology

As a leading IoT Solutions company in Malaysia, V-Series International strives to help businesses to undergo digital transformation with smart digital solutions so that they can follow the global steps of IR4.0 and at the same time, help to build a smarter community. Hence, after V-Series International discovered the potential limitations of current wayfinding solutions in the market and the challenges users are facing, V-Series International decided to go beyond the conventional wayfinding solution and leverage their industry-leading expertise to innovate the AI Wayfinding Solutions through the integration of AI and Big Data Analytics Technology to the digital wayfinding kiosk.

The invention of the seamless AI Wayfinding Solution allows users to perform mobile wayfinding through a dedicated QR Code and also live navigation through their mobile phone. In addition, with the support of AI and Big Data Analytics technology, the wayfinding kiosk is able to perform big data analysis and deep learning on the users’ behavior. The data collected and analyzed could help the business to gather insightful data and ideas for future marketing planning.

V-Series International’s AI Wayfinding Kiosk comes with a 27” inches industrial grade LED screen display that provides Full HD dynamic content, ensuring the users experience the best visual performance. The screen display has also built-in the V-Series’ 10 Points Projected Capacitive Touch Screen (PCAP) technology that offers excellent sensitivity level to touch command, allowing the users to have a seamless touchscreen experience when serving the AI Wayfinding Kiosk. To make sure the AI Wayfinding Kiosk is durable under harsh environments, it is fabricated with a robust and ruggedized enclosure that is constructed with EG Sheet Metal and Epoxy Powder Coating. In addition, the adoption of Intel® Alder Lake CPU has enabled the wayfinding kiosk to provide high compute and graphic performance all day without lagging issues.

As the name implies, AI Wayfinding Solutions comes with AI and Big Data Analytics technology that enables the AI Wayfinding Kiosk to perform deep learning on users’ behavior and interest while using the kiosk. Data such as numbers of clicks, searches and so on can be captured, translated, analyzed and upload to V-Series Secure Cloud Management System – VigitCloud. With the empowerment of Intel® Distribution of OpenVINO™ Technology, it helps V-Series AI analytic system to increase its accuracy during data capturing
and translation.

By leveraging the full potential of the AI Wayfinding Kiosk, it has also integrated with V-Series International’s self-developed content management software – VigitSIGN. The interactive screen display could function as digital signage when it is not being used by the users. The management team or marketers could fully utilize it by putting up business announcements, community announcements or news, promotions etc. In addition, the relevant team could directly access to VigitCloud to effortlessly conduct content updates and management anytime at anywhere. Thanks to the support of Intel® Graphic Technology, the AI Wayfinding Kiosk are able to display true-to-life images and videos with Full HD picture quality that could eventually catch the users’ attention.

To improve the overall wayfinding experience by solving the issues met by the users mentioned above, V-Series International has self-developed the AI Wayfinding Software – VigitWFS, where users can conduct precise destination navigation through QR Code Mobile Wayfinding. With the very user-friendly web interface, virtual maps and live navigation with pathfinder can be easily accessed by just scanning the QR Code with any mobile device.

Moreover, thanks to the support of Intel® vPro™ AMT Solution, the V-Series International support team is able to conduct remote monitoring and achieve real-time maintenance proactively once they find the technical issues. Not to forget about the stable internet connection that plays an important role in the whole system and software. With the empowerment of Intel® Wi-Fi 6 Technology, a more reliable and stable internet connection can be provided to the wayfinding kiosk and at the same time, provide faster upload and download speed. This has helped the support team to have a stable connection with the kiosk, ensuring no connection breakdown will occur during the process of remote monitoring and maintenance.

The Broad Application of AI Wayfinding Kiosk in Different Industries

Whenever people discuss about the digital wayfinding kiosks, they will always relate to shopping malls. This is because due to the mass adoption of the wayfinding kiosk in this industry, people can easily find and use wayfinding kiosks in the shopping mall. However, V-Series International AI Wayfinding Solutions are suitable to use in any industry, whether indoor or outdoor, as long as the wayfinding requires. Here are some examples where V-Series AI Wayfinding Solution can be applied:

Conclusion

Wayfinding Kiosk has been more and more popular in the past 10 years. With the technological advancement in V-Series, the AI Wayfinding Kiosk can provide multiple functions, and at the same time, achieve better interaction, and engagement with the users. With so many positive outcomes that could bring to both businesses and users, and also to society, V-Series International is ready to proactively deploy and promote this technology in the market, aiming to help businesses and the country accelerate the process of digital transformation.

[References]

iTNews Asia Team. (2021, October 20). Malaysia sets vision to be a high-tech country by 2030. ITnews Asia. Retrieved October 20, 2022, from https://www.itnews.asia/news/malaysia- sets-vision-to-be-a-high-tech-country-by-2030-571487

Lee, J.Q. (2021) Interactive Directory for Shopping Mall via Augmented Reality. thesis. Available at:
http://eprints.utar.edu.my/4259/1/17ACB02175_FYP.pdf (Accessed: October 7, 2022).