An augmented reality based group communication system for bikers using smart phones

The bicycling recently has gained a lot of popularity in many applications, such as transportation, recreation, and exercise. Bikers may ride in different speeds due to their body strengthes and bike performance such that group members using smart phones form two-tier vehicular long-thin networks along the common cycling path, which consist of a 3G/3.5G high-tier interface and an IEEE 802.11-based low-tier interface. In this paper, we design a Google Android and Maps-based solution for cycling group communications. On the handset side, an Android program is developed for group member localization, communication, and transmission. In addition, the augmented reality interface is integrated to show the biker information on real-time camera views of smart phones. On the web side, a biker community site is built for the biker interaction, grouping, and dedicated album. To provide efficient group communications and reduce the transmission delay, ad-hoc communications are adopted to locally exchange data among bikers. Also, a dynamic grouping mechanism has been designed to maintain the stable member connectivity in ad-hoc environments. Furthermore, the gateway selection in a group has taken the similar mobility pattern of members into account for minimizing 3G/3.5G communications.