The experimentation took place in the monumental complex of San Pietro in Vincoli, home of the Faculty of Engineering over five days form December 3 to December 10 2012, with over 100 students involved. The experimentation was made possible thanks to the collaboration between two spin-offs of Sapienza University of Rome: SPinV and WSENSE Srl.
Students were equipped with wireless RFID tags, used to determine their position by an infrastructure of 25 RFID readers installed at the first floor of the complex. The map of the first floor and the position of the tags is presented below:
Positions of RFID readers in the experimentation of December 2012
A web application was made available to students to get position-based information services, including the following functions:
- Where am I? – Position
- How do I get from my position to point of interest X? – Position-based navigation
- How do I get from point of interest X to point of interest Y? – Offline navigation
- What classes are being offered in classroom X, either now or at a specified date and time? – Time dependent information
- Where can I find an available class or lecture room to study or meet? - Time dependent information
SPinV web application interface
Following the conclusion of the experiment, students were asked to express their satisfaction level over the services offered by the platform. The figures below presents the level of satisfaction related to the accuracy of positioning and navigation services, as well as the interest for a permanent deployment of the SPinV platform, and highlight the clear success of the experimentation.
Feedback from users after the experimentation of December 2012. From left to right: level of satisfaction on positioning accuracy, level of satisfaction on navigation accuracy, interest in a permanente service.