A Maltese navigational system has won a prize in the seventh edition of the European Satellite Navigation Competition (ESNC).
The application, named Dinos for Smart Cities, is a hybrid system that collects and manages information and aids users travelling in cities by making use of localisation services. It was designed by two Maltese scientists, Alexiei Dingli and Dylan Seychell who, together with Tunde Kallai, submitted the idea to the competition.
The Maltese initiative was awarded this first prize in the media category of the Living Lab Prize. The research was also presented at the Galileo Control Centre at the European Space Agency Park in the outskirts of Munich.
The aims of ESNC are to further strengthen international collaboration in the development of applications and services made possible by Galileo, Europe’s satellite navigation system.
Dinos incorporates an intelligent information system that automatically manages the status of the queues at tourist attractions, thus distributing visitors among different places of interest. The system is able to determine which queue is moving most quickly. Using artificial intelligence techniques, Dinos in return suggests attractions to users depending on this status and provides recommendations based on their proximity to relevant locations. Natural language processing is employed to protect tourists by reducing their use of the traditional methods, making them less vulnerable to theft. The system is composed of a central server that receives information from nodes at places of interest and interacts with users on their mobile devices. The implementation and evaluation of this research were supported by Vodafone Malta Ltd.
Dinos has various applications in society especially in tourism, marketing, education, and gaming. In the field of tourism the system enables users to obtain information about the attractions in cities and general orientation based on a combination of digital maps and guidebooks. The commercial community and historical attractions can use Dinos to promote their products and services while collaborating together to improve users’ experiences in cities where the system is implemented. Educators can use the system to conduct fun learning experiences around cities, such as scavenger hunts.