ARiadne: Finding Your Way with AR, Sound and Touch

00:00:09: Welcome to Inside Immersion, the podcast of the Immersive Reality Lab at Hamm-Lippstadt University of Applied Sciences.

00:00:17: I'm your host, Jan-Niklas Voigt-Antons, Professor for Computer Science with a focus on immersive media.

00:00:22: In this series, we take you behind the scenes of immersive technologies like virtual and augmented reality, how they are researched,

00:00:30: how they are developed, and how they might shape the way we live, work, and interact with each other in the future.

00:00:38: Today, we're going to dive deep into a project that connects two very different worlds: advanced AR technology and one of the most human, everyday activities—walking through a city.

00:00:50: The project is called ARiadne,

00:00:52: and it's about creating an adaptive, multimodal, and inclusive navigation system for pedestrians—leveraging augmented reality not just for novelty, but for true social benefit.

00:01:05: My guest today is Julie Henning, a research associate in our Immersive Reality Lab and a central contributor to the ARiadne project.

00:01:14: Julie, I'm thrilled to have you here!

00:01:16: Thank you.

00:01:17: I am excited to be part of Inside Immersion and tell you little bit more about what we've planned for this project and what we have already done.

00:01:26: Give us a little introduction

00:01:27: to who you are.

00:01:28: Sure, I am Julie Henning. I have been working on ARiadne

00:01:34: One and a half years now.

00:01:36: And we've accomplished quite a lot.

00:01:38: I've been working on the project together with the software company SWCode from Soest, it's been really fun ride so far, and I studied media and communication, and I've always been interested in human-machine interaction.

00:01:56: So working on this project kind of allows me to bridge my existing knowledge, media and marketing, with tech, which is cool because I'm like learning a lot and delving deeper into the concept of augmented reality, which was super interesting, and relating that to urban space, also something that I am really interested in.

00:02:21: Facts about the project. The name of the project is ARiadne and the full title is: SDK for high-precision, multimodal, AR-integrated pedestrian navigation.

00:02:33: The project was funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy with a total sum of roughly six hundred thousand euro in total and two hundred thousand euro for HSHL.

00:02:47: The project started in summer twenty-four and has a duration of twenty-four months.

00:02:53: Project partner in this project is SWCode, a software developing company from Soest.

00:02:59: The aim of the project is to develop an SDK that lets other apps include augmented reality pedestrian navigation as a feature into their existing app.

00:03:09: Achievements so far is that the development has started,

00:03:12: we have gained a lot of insights into what makes augmented reality navigation desirable for pedestrian users.

00:03:20: Let's start with the basics.

00:03:22: What is ARiadne in a nutshell?

00:03:27: So ARiadne is a two-year research and development project focusing on designing a pedestrian navigation system with augmented reality.

00:03:40: Our goal is to offer like real-time guidance through visual AR overlays, through spatial audio cues and haptic feedback.

00:03:52: A real big focus of the project is that it's all personalized to their users' needs, meaning different target groups have different goals for navigation and requirements.

00:04:06: So we're trying to accommodate them.

00:04:10: It's more than just placing an arrow on a street – building an intelligent system with adaptable experience.

00:04:20: So it's not just an app,

00:04:22: it's more like a platform for how people interact with urban space.

00:04:26: Yes, exactly!

00:04:28: ARiadne is kind of like toolkit.

00:04:30: We have the user interface, but we would like to become an enabler in inclusion and mobility.

00:04:39: We currently have what I call as a problem that urban navigation is very car-centric, and we would like to emphasize walking a little bit more, and make walking easier.

00:04:57: Make it safer and make it more engaging, especially for people that might currently be underserved by existing

00:05:05: solutions.

00:05:07: And there's something empowering about using cutting-edge tech to make walking—not driving—more accessible.

00:05:13: Yeah,

00:05:15: yeah.

00:05:15: We're interested in making cities more human, and more walkable

00:05:21: cities are better for everyone.

00:05:23: In our opinion it makes some... it makes them healthier.

00:05:26: It makes them greener and more socially connected as well.

00:05:32: Let's break down how someone might actually use this system.

00:05:38: So imagine a visitor arriving in the new city, like someone attending conference at city center, and they don't know the city.

00:05:47: They open the ARiadne app to enter their destination.

00:05:51: Instead of getting abstract 2D directions, they hold up their smartphone and see overlays, so they can see a line navigating them or POIs and real-time information about like bus stops or cool events that are happening nearby.

00:06:11: So we're shifting from symbolic navigation to direct visual cues in context.

00:06:16: Yeah, exactly.

00:06:17: And it's also not only visual.

00:06:20: If a user wears earbuds, we can have spatial audio cues guide them.

00:06:26: Spatial audio cues are sounds coming from like certain directions and people follow the direction. In that way, they can navigate and leave the phone in their pockets.

00:06:39: What if I'm someone who doesn't like too much on-screen clutter?

00:06:42: We are creating a personalized and adaptable interface, meaning that if you don't like too much on-screen clutter,

00:06:52: you can adjust the amount of POIs that you would like to see and basically just adjusts visual density according your needs.

00:07:03: It also adapts to walking speed, so if you're walking really quickly, might be less POIs to make it a little bit safer to walk.

00:07:14: And for people with impairments?

00:07:15: Yeah, we want to make ARiadne especially helpful for people who have specific needs.

00:07:20: So if someone has low vision and is using the system, they can switch to an entirely audio-based navigation that uses tactile alerts through their phone or connected devices.

00:07:41: What kind of testing are you planning on doing?

00:07:44: So far, we've conducted outdoor studies on campus testing different navigation visuals and also warning signs for pedestrian safety.

00:07:53: And our next studies will focus on marketing aspects and so-called points of interests, POIs, that I was talking about earlier, like visuals indicating there's an event happening in a certain place or marketing 3D visual showing specific shop.

00:08:12: And what do you expect to learn from these studies?

00:08:15: We are expecting to learn a lot about what users need in augmented reality navigation. We started with a survey with twenty participants to just find out what users desire for a pedestrian navigation that works with AR.

00:08:35: The findings suggest that users really appreciate personalization.

00:08:40: So in terms of comfort or just POIs, visuals, navigation visuals, even people would like to adjust these things for their own liking.

00:08:52: And another insight is that users would like to put the phone in your pockets and use audio navigation.

00:08:59: So there's also something we are currently working on, and what we're also expecting to find out is like, what kind of visuals,

00:09:10: what kind of audio is actually preferable for users.

00:09:15: Doesn't that defeat the purpose of AR in a way?

00:09:19: Oh, the audio navigation you mean.

00:09:22: So spatial audio actually is a form of augmented reality.

00:09:26: So we're currently conducting a study dealing with spatial sound, and we're interested in what kind of sounds would be most preferable for people.

00:09:36: We did some pre-studies came out with artificial sound versus natural sounds.

00:09:44: And it seems like natural sound is a lot more preferable for people.

00:09:50: But that also kind of depends, the environment that people are in.

00:09:56: So, in a city-urban environment natural sounds can be really helpful and calming, but in forest walks could probably be misleading for navigation.

00:10:09: But as I said, audio augmented reality is direct augmentation of your real-world experience using digital information.

00:10:18: So yes, it's definitely not defeating the purpose of AR.

00:10:24: Let's zoom out again.

00:10:27: What do you hope ARiadne changes long term?

00:10:31: In the long term I would actually really like to see digital navigation and be really inclusive.

00:10:41: So if people with low vision can use spatial audio or to use augmented reality navigation, that will really great.

00:10:53: If they're walking disabilities, the routes hopefully show a route that is adapted to that need.

00:11:04: And I really hope people think differently about digital public space and what digitization can actually do for inclusivity.

00:11:15: That's something that can change in the long term.

00:11:21: And what about the risks?

00:11:23: Yeah, so the safety concerns is something we are very aware of.

00:11:29: When you design something that immerses people, the aspect of safety becomes a really important one, and we're taking measurements to make sure people are aware their surroundings while using this system because it's really important.

00:11:45: This includes trade-offs, of course, because we can't immerse them in a way that completely distracts them, and we need to find ways of immersing them but also making them aware of safety

00:11:59: critical situations.

00:12:01: Still be aware their environments prevent accidents.

00:12:06: That's an important distinction. Especially in the attention economy.

00:12:10: Yes,

00:12:10: exactly.

00:12:11: And I think ARiadne should be more about presence and making people aware of the here now instead of being like distracting.

00:12:22: Let's talk about the team.

00:12:23: What makes this project special behind the scenes?

00:12:26: Yeah, so the project team is a mix of developers from the software company, from our side different researchers with like a lot of different focus.

00:12:38: We have computer science, we have me with media and marketing, then we have psychology.

00:12:43: So we're all coming together to work on this project.

00:12:45: It's been really fun to do the studies.

00:12:48: And um... we also brought city councils of Soest and the city of Lippstadt to talk about real-world scenarios that can implement for testing.

00:13:00: What are your plans for the implementation?

00:13:03: We're currently talking about how to implement AR marketing elements into the navigation. We also have a student writing his dissertation, his bachelor's dissertation, I know that in Germany it's called differently than in the UK where I did my bachelor's.

00:13:17: Yeah, he is writing it on AR marketing and we are using the case of ARiadne to try out different things in the city center of Lippstadt.

00:13:30: And see what AR marketing visuals can actually do for a shopping experience.

00:13:38: Fascinating.

00:13:39: So you're modeling not just a route, but a whole experience.

00:13:43: Yeah, exactly.

00:13:44: So it's really about the whole experience of navigating through a city, seeing different things like cultural events, shopping, sightseeing.

00:13:56: It is really about experiencing in new way, I would say.

00:14:10: Research paper of the day: SpeculAR: An In-the-wild Exploration of Users' Perceptions of a Social Augmented Reality. Authors: Mihael Gajic, Flurin Selm, Adrian Preussner and Florian Mathis.

00:14:26: The main idea of the paper is an investigation of users' perception of augmented social environments tailored to their shared interests. They interviewed 64 participants to find out what an augmented social space could look like in the city of St. Gallen and what kind of scenarios people would desire.

00:14:47: Based on the interviews, they built SpeculAR, an app for Meta Quest 3, and had 18 people test it in the wild.

00:14:55: The app had 13 scenarios that are relevant to public shared interest, such as construction sites, ads or trees.

00:15:05: What did they find?

00:15:07: As for the interview part, they found that navigation and wayfinding was one of the desired features of the AR app,

00:15:15: so was a tour guide to learn more about the city.

00:15:19: Other points raised were accessibility, history, advertisements, among others.

00:15:30: Julie, thank you for this deep dive.

00:15:33: It's been inspiring to see how immersive technology can move beyond entertainment and become a tool for inclusion, autonomy, and urban innovation.

00:15:43: Thank you, Jan!

00:15:44: And thank you very much everybody who listened to this podcast.

00:15:49: We're excited to share more about ARiadne once the project evolves.

00:15:56: Share what we have found out.

00:16:02: You'll find links to the project, demo videos, and contact information in the show notes.

00:16:07: And as always: stay curious, stay critical, and join us next time on Inside Immersion.