MTA: Mobile Tourist Agent

location based services

When travelling and visiting new places, tourists are mobile as they wander around and follow tours through landscapes and cities they are in general unfamiliar with and which they like to discover and learn more about. The mobile commerce sector is set to witness phenomenal growth. Modern technologies in the field of communications allow us to design systems that provide Location Based Services (LBS) for mobile application. We present a mobile tourist information system named MTA (Mobile Tourist Agent) that implements a tourist guide for users, in the UAE, especially Dubai. MTA provides Location Based Service and performs functions based on the geographical information of the user about points of interest like hotels and restaurants nearby and show this information on an interactive map. MTA provides additional services that interest and help the tourists like an online up-to-date currency converter, weather forecast and prayer times. We try to show how the distribution of the client/server application logic meets the technical constraints imposed by mobile networks and devices in mobile application development. Keywords: Location Based Services, Tourist Information System, Electronic Guide, Mobile Application, Tourism in Dubai.
1 IntroductionThe inspiration of this project came about when we were thinking of something that is original, utilizes many technologies, can be commercially implemented with the least expenses. It is almost certain that a new visitor to Dubai will have next to no prior experience navigating around. We thought of the sector or tourism and tourists to Dubai as our targeted users and sector since tourism is one of the main sources of income in Dubai. We focus foremost on enhancing the experience of Dubai as a place to live or visit. We aim to open aspects of the city characters for the benefit of entertainment and tourism, giving Dubai a technology base that would continue to lunch new consumer and commercial business services in the future. Currently, electronic tourist guides are two types, web-based guides and mobilebased guides. This separation of the two types is due to the different platforms, technology, transmission speeds on each environment. However, modern technologies in the field of communications and the availability of wireless transmission media allow us to design a distributed client/server tourist information system named MTA (Mobile Tourist Agent). Our system uses the mobile device or PDA as a terminal for receiving information from a web server that acts as central point to coordinate and manages the interaction between the points and source of information. MTA can be used either while walking through the city or indoor in the user's place of staying. In the first case( Fig. 1), the system offers interactive map for the city of Dubai with the ability to navigate and zoom in/out and to view the points of interest such as hotels, restaurants, cinema theatres, embassies and other points that may interest the tourist. The system provides Location Based Services (LBS) by showing the user's location on the map an showing the points that are within a specific distance from them. The user can click on the points to get more information about the selected point. In addition to the LBS, MTA provides additional services that help the tourist during his visit like a universal currency converter, weather forecast and daily prayer times. For the other case (Fig. 2), the user might be interested in getting information about their trip without installing MTA on their mobile phones. MTA provides a web version for normal PC users that can be accessed from a web browser. The web version provides similar services provided by the mobile version but without the Location Based Services. For the connectivity of the mobile client, we assume an internet connection through a wireless network (Wi-Fi) or a GPRS connection as a channel. This connection is used to send requests, enquiries and LBS information to the server which receive the information, process, prepares a response and sends back a reply.
2 System Architecture MTA architecture follows the basic MVC (Model View Controller) architecture. (Fig 3) Following the MVC design pattern separates our systems into three distinct classes: • Model Stores the data and application logic (resides on the web server) • View Renders the interface and interacts with the user, two types of view are supported in MTA: • Mobile View: installed on the mobile device • Web view: for normal PC users and can be accessed through a web browser • Controller Responds to user input by modifying the model then sending the model responds back to the view (resides on the web server) The basic principle of MVC is the separation of responsibilities. In an MVC application, the model class concerns itself only with the application's state and logic. It has no interest in how that state is represented to the user or how user input is received. By contrast, the view class concerns itself only with creating the user interface in response to generic updates it receives from the model. It doesn't care about application logic nor about the processing of input; it makes sure that the interface reflects the current state of the model. Finally, the controller class is occupied solely with translating user input (provided by the view) into updates that it passes to the model. It doesn't care how the input is received or what the model does with those updates.
3 Location Based ServicesLocation Based Services (LBS) encompass a wide variety of systems that provide a customer or service provider with the positional information of a mobile device. LBS is one of the main features provided by MTA, LBS is used to locate the user location on the map and to provide information about points of interest around the user location. The current location of the user can be obtained using different techniques. Location Based Services must use real-time positioning methods. Accuracy depends on the method used. For outdoor use, a satellite-based approach, such as GPS (Global Positioning System), can be used. A GPS enabled mobile device or an external GPS receiver connected to the mobile device through Bluetooth is required. GPS determines the device's position by calculating differences in the times signals from different satellites take to reach the receiver. GPS is potentially the most accurate method (between 4 and 40 meters if the GPS receiver has a clear view of the sky), but it has some drawbacks: The extra hardware can be costly and consumes battery while in use. Alternatively, the mobile phone network can be used. The current cell ID can be used to identify the Base Transceiver Station (BTS) that the device is communicating with and the location of that BTS. Clearly, the accuracy of this method depends on the size of the cell, and can be quite inaccurate. A GSM cell may be anywhere from 2 to 20 kilometers in diameter. Our first plan in designing MTA was to read the cell ID through Etisalat network (the service provider in the UAE) then using a location component, the cell ID can be sent as an input to the component that matches the cell ID with the geographical location stored in our database after filling the database with cell ID-to-location mapping entries and the cell division and distribution map. Unfortunately Etisalat considered such information highly confidential and didn't provide us with any help in this manner so we had to think of other alternatives. Fortunately, SUN has provided developers in the field of LBS with the Location API for J2ME (JSR 179), a set of generic APIs that can be used for developing location-based services. SUN has also released the SUN Java Wireless Toolkit (WTK) 2.3 BETA. WTK is a state-of-the-art toolbox for developing wireless applications that are based on J2ME and designed to run on cell phones and other small mobile devices. The toolkit includes emulators to support the Location API for J2ME (JSR 179) which made our life easier by allowing us to test Location Based Services provided by our application MTA at our homes, the emulator allows the used to simulate the location by entering the coordinates manually. The Location API provides an interface for reading the device location independent of the positioning technology used to determine the location. So whether we are using the GPS, mobile phone network (cell ID) or even using the WTK emulator, the location will be expressed in the latitude-longitude coordinates system.
4 Problems and DifficultiesThe main difficulty we faced was the time constrains, we had to learn about new techniques and technologies, within less than 2 months. The requirement gathering phase took us too long to collect the needed information and make choices on which platforms or methods to use to get our work done in an efficient way. We faced difficulties in locating the device location because of the lack of information that we were hoping to get from ETISALAT, the Service Provider in the UAE. In testing phase, it was hard for us to test the Location Based Services on real locations, but thanks to SUN's Wireless Toolkit that includes emulators to support the Location API for J2ME (JSR 179) which made our life easier by allowing us to test Location Based Services provided by our application MTA at our homes, the emulator allows the used to simulate the location by entering the coordinates manually. We filled our Database with around 200 points of interest and we gathered all the information about these points along with their locations on the map of Dubai manually which was another difficulty.
5 Future WorkThere are carious areas of this project that can be pursued for future work. One such area is increasing the size and variety of the covered area by integrating the remaining cities of the UAE. Another area is to commercially implement the project by allowing the points of interest owners to register with us to have their restaurants or hotels listed in MTA for some fees, and provide them with accounts to log in and update their information or to post some special offers or menus or whatever information they think it may interest the customer.
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Related site: http://www.sharjah.ac.ae
Notes and media contactsRami Enbachi, Hani Al-Haddad Supervised by: Dr Lami Kaya Department of Computer Science University of Sharjah References [1] Qusay H., "J2ME and Location-Based Services ", 2004, online: http://developers.sun.com/techtopics/mobility/apis/articles/location [2] "JSR-000179 Location API for J2METM", http://www.jcp.org/aboutJava/communityprocess/final/jsr179/ [3] George M., Will W., "The Java Location API", http://wireless.sys-con.com/read/46634.htm [4] Robert P, "MacauMap: Tourism-Oriented Mobile GIS Application" [5] "Bill Day's J2ME Archive", http://www.billday.com/j2me/ [6] "Using the Push Registry in MIDP 2.0" http://www.mamlambo.com/mdn/archives/000688.html [7] "J2ME and Java Landscape", http://www.tattvum.com/Articles/2003/2003-10/2003-10-19/Ramu-J2ME- 20031014-Introduction.html [8] "J2ME learning by example", www.java2s.com [9] Thamer N., "The Islamic Tools and Libraries (ITL)" http://www.arabeyes.org/project.php?proj=ITL [10] http://moonsighting.com/prayer.html [11] http://www.mpadc.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2590 [12] http://en.wikipedia.org