Road and Driving Pattern Analyzer using Ultrabook™

Introduction

Application Sub-Category: Entertainment | Desktop app

Application is utilizing novel Ultrabooks™ feature set, in particular GPS, Accelerometer and Ambient Light Sensors, allowing real-time data acquisition and analysis of route trace and driving patterns and conditions. Intended primarily for Motosport racing professionals (e.g. NASCAR) it can also be used by general public, either professional drivers or travelers.

Use cases 

1. Motosport racing professionals to acquire/analyze driving information
2. Professional/amature drivers to acquire/analyze driving and traffic patterns 
3. Mass transit authorities to acquire/analyze driving and traffic patterns
4. Traveler/tourists to acquire/analyze driving patterns and detect potential "unfair" routing practice by taxi-cab drivers 

Core software modules

• Real-time data acquisition of geographical information (uniform/adaptive sampling)
• Real-time data acquisition of vehicle movement dynamics
• Real-time data acquisition of ambient light information
• Real-time "Find nearby" module using Microsoft Bing™ Mapping technology
• Route tracer using Microsoft Bing™ Mapping technology 
• Charting engine to visualize driving pattern and other vehicle movement dynamic data

Background

Systemic approach to GPS-enabled application design

Since the early days of the GIS (geographic information system) and Geo-map technology adoption (like Google Maps or Microsoft Bing™) the seemingly infinite variety of use-cases essentially can be boiled down to just 2 fundamentals, namely:

1. Find Location, i.e. the geographical point on the map
2. Find  Nearby, i.e. some Points of Interest (POI) in a close proximity, where POI can be potentially any noun found in English dictionary (and some other languages, as well)

As an example geo-mapping development, interactive Map of NASCAR Racing Tracks, was developed approximately 6 years ago, implementing these 2 fundamental use cases: show on the map the Racing Track Location and implement the Find Nearby capability regarding various POI like bus stops, food and beverage, hotels, parking, etc. Approximately at the same time,  Geocoder web application [4] was developed, capable of providing geographic coordinates (Latitude and Longitude) of the locations based on their postal address, or just a ZIP-code in the US.

Using the code

The application is extending the typical use-cases of finding some POI nearby from static to dynamic (real-time) mode, plus it provides a novel vehicle movement dynamic and driving condition analysis, in particular, regarding acceleration/deceleration/speed profile, road traffic, ambient light condition, etc.

Working demo and detailed description are available. As a contest entry, this Application contain certain proprietary content/code base.

History 

Application framework has been developed and partially prototyped/tested in simulated environment.

References

1. Microsoft Bing SDK
2. Edumatter M12: School Math Calculators and Equation Solvers