- The Vision, Debugged;
- Posts
- Could AI End Indoor Navigation Nightmares?
Could AI End Indoor Navigation Nightmares?
PLUS: Climb the Career Ladder Faster with This Pro Prompt!
Tezan Sahu & Sandra Anil
September 24th, 2024
Howdy fellas!
Today, Spark & Trouble are lighting the way through the intriguing maze of innovation. Ready to connect the dots? Let’s spark some trouble! 🔍✨
Gif by bbmas on Giphy
Here’s a sneak peek into today’s edition 👀
📌 Floor Plans + AI = The Future of Indoor Navigation
🧑💼 Ready to Level Up? Unleash Your Inner Career Ninja with this Prompt
🔮 3 amazing AI tools that you just can’t miss!
🎶 A super-awesome way to create ad jingles & AI-renditions of songs
Time to jump in!😄
PS: Got thoughts on our content? Share 'em through a quick survey at the end of every edition It helps us see how our product labs, insights & resources are landing, so we can make them even better.
Hot off the Wires 🔥
We're eavesdropping on the smartest minds in research. 🤫 Don't miss out on what they're cooking up! In this section, we dissect some of the juiciest tech research that holds the key to what's next in tech.⚡
Remember how Tony Stark's AI assistant, J.A.R.V.I.S., effortlessly guided him through his high-tech mansion in the Iron Man movies? Or how did the Enterprise's computer in Star Trek always know the fastest route to the holodeck?
Well, we might just be getting pretty close to having AI that can read and understand floor plans like a pro tour guide!
Imagine stepping into a sprawling office building, university campus, or shopping mall. Instead of wandering aimlessly or squinting at confusing signage, what if an AI assistant could guide you effortlessly to your destination?
Thanks to researchers at Binghamton University, this sci-fi dream is inching closer to reality with the capabilities of Vision Language Models like GPT-4o & Claude-3.5 Sonnet!
Forging the fundamentals
Before we dive in, let's decode a couple of key terms:
Vision-Language Model (VLM): An AI system that can understand and process both images and text, allowing it to "see" and "read" simultaneously. Large VLMs include GPT-4o & Claude-3.5 Sonnet, while smaller VLMs include Qwen-VL, Phi-3.5, etc.
Map Parsing: The process of analyzing and extracting meaningful information from a map, in this case, understanding the layout and relationships between different areas on a floor plan.
So, what’s new?
Current approaches to indoor navigation face some serious hurdles:
Creating accurate, detailed maps is incredibly time-consuming and labor-intensive.
Traditional map-parsing techniques often miss the subtle connections between different areas.
Computer Vision-based methods struggle with global knowledge – they might understand what's right in front of them, but lack the big picture.
Complex building layouts with multiple floors, wings, or interconnected spaces? Forget about it!
Enter the Floor Plan Whisperer…
Researchers at Binghamton University have introduced a game-changing approach: using Vision-Language Models to parse floor plans for mobile robot navigation. They've even showcased it in action with a DEEPRobotics Lite3 quadruped robot, navigating a building on their campus!
Here’s the Lite 3 Series Advanced Bionic Robot Dogs (source: deeprobotics.cn)
Under the hood…
The researchers put two heavyweight VLMs (GPT-4V and Claude 3.5 Sonnet) to the test, using the following approach to understand & navigate an area using just its floor plan:
Visual Prompting Strategy
Raw floor plans are often cluttered with details that could confuse the AI (like furniture symbols or varying wall thicknesses).
The researchers clean up the floor plan, removing extraneous details.
They add duplicate room labels in open spaces and doorways to help the AI understand the layout better. (Note: This step is currently done manually, but automation is on the horizon!)
VLM-based Plan Generation
The AI is given this simplified floor plan image and a text prompt.
The prompt includes a starting point and destination
Beyond this, the text prompt also contains detailed instructions on how the navigation must take place, along with the rules & restrictions
The VLM then formulates step-by-step navigation instructions based on its understanding of the floor plan.
Detailed text prompt fed to the VLM for navigation plan generation (source: research paper)
Once the task plan is generated using the VLM, it is fed into the robot to be actually executed for the actual navigation.
This is what the overall map parsing, navigation plan generation & navigation process looks like (source: research paper)
Both models showed similar performance trends when navigating publicly available floor plan datasets:
Impressive 96% success rate for navigation plans requiring up to nine actions!
Accuracy decreased as map sizes increased (not surprising).
More complex navigation tasks led to lower accuracy (also expected).
Interestingly, models performed better with dense labels compared to sparse labels – a valuable insight for future development!
Why does this matter?
This technology isn't just cool – it has the potential to revolutionize multiple industries:
🧑⚕️ Healthcare: Imagine an AI-powered app guiding patients and visitors through complex hospital layouts, reducing stress and improving efficiency. Imagine integrating it with Aethon's TUG robots for smoother hospital logistics
🛍️ Retail: Walmart or Target could enhance their store apps, helping customers find products more easily. It could even work with Simbe Robotics' Tally inventory robots for more efficient restocking routes.
🏫 Education: New students could easily find their way around sprawling university campuses. It could even assist autonomous delivery robots like those from Starship Technologies, already in use at many universities.
🏨 Hospitality: Hotels could provide seamless wayfinding for guests, improving their stay and reducing staff workload.
🦺 Emergency Services: First responders could navigate unfamiliar buildings more quickly and efficiently during critical situations.
🏢 Office Complexes: Tech giants like Google or Microsoft could use this for employee and visitor navigation in their sprawling campuses.
Did you know?
The global Indoor Positioning and Navigation market was valued at $6.92 billion in 2017 and had grown to $23.6 billion in 2023 at a CAGR of 27.9%.
These amazing researchers have also suggested a few ways to make this technology even better:
Automating the label placement process could make this tech widely applicable.
Integrating real-world knowledge in the form of common-sense reasoning into these AI models will help overcome navigation challenges
While we might not have robot butlers guiding us through our homes just yet, this research marks a significant step towards more intuitive and accessible indoor navigation.
The next time you're lost in a maze-like building, remember – your AI navigator might be just around the corner!
10x Your Workflow with AI 📈
Work smarter, not harder! In this section, you’ll find prompt templates 📜 & bleeding-edge AI tools ⚙️ to free up your time.
Fresh Prompt Alert!🚨
Feeling stuck in your professional journey? Time to unleash your inner career ninja!
This week's Fresh Prompt Alert is your personal career coach in a box. It'll help you craft a promotion-worthy plan that'll make your manager's jaw drop faster than you can say "synergy."
So, whether you're aiming for the corner office or just want to level up your game, this prompt's got your back. Ready to climb that career ladder? Let's go! 🚀💼
Adopt the persona of an experienced career coach with knowledge of many professional industries. You should be encouraging, but take a thoughtful view of what I say because I am not very experienced at writing career plans, and may have blind spots about my own growth and weaknesses.
I am a professional looking to write a career development outline for my manager, to help me promoted to the next job level.
Ask the necessary questions one by one to help understand the following:
1. My career goals
2. Whether career plans at my organization are required to have any specific headings or sections
3. My previous career plan, if any, and what is out of date or in need of improvement about it
4. My current role and company size
5. The promotion process and progression ladder for my next role at this organization, if there is one defined
6. My strengths and areas for improvement, in my view
7. What my manager and peers think I should be improving
8. My opportunities for learning or mentorship
As I answer your questions about these topics, give me some sense of how far along we are towards getting a first draft. For example, you might say, "Excellent, only a couple more questions to go" when we're getting close.
If I give a partial or incomplete answer to a question, especially if a very important aspect went unanswered, you can ask for more detail.
Once you have enough information, write a concise, thoughtfully written draft of this plan, that refers back to any defined promotion or ladder criteria I have shared. Once you've completed a draft, ask me 2-3 specific questions about the draft and how it could be better, so you can to iteratively refine the draft with me.
Start by explaining briefly what we're going to do, and asking about my career goals.
3 AI Tools You JUST Can't Miss 🤩
📽️ ShortMake - Transform your ideas into viral videos with AI
📕 Inncivio - AI-powered learning infrastructure for businesses
📝 TurboScribe - Unlimited audio & video transcription in seconds
Spark 'n' Trouble Shenanigans 😜
This week, our dynamic duo stumbled upon "LyricsIntoSongs AI," a tool that turns words into professional-grade music. Naturally, Spark and Trouble couldn't resist putting it to the test!
Its key features include melody conversion, multi-genre composition, instrumentation, vocal synthesis, and style customization.
Our mischievous mascots tried two experiments:
AI Rendition of a Classic: Trouble challenged the AI to recreate a beloved hit
ChatGPT Jingle: Spark, ever the product enthusiast, tasked the AI with creating a catchy jingle for ChatGPT
Want to hear these AI-generated tracks? Take a listen:
Now it's your turn! What would you create if you took LyricsIntoSongs AI for a spin? A tech-themed power ballad? An ode to your favorite programming language? Or perhaps a lullaby for debugging at 3 AM?
Try it out and share your AI musical creations with us!
Well, that’s a wrap! Until then, |  |
 |  |
Reply