This document describes the design and development of a mobile tour guide device that combines GPS and RFID technologies. The device is intended to guide visitors both indoors and outdoors by providing location-based information via text, audio, and pictures. It uses an ARM microcontroller, LCD display, GPS receiver, RFID reader, and other components. The device determines the user's location using GPS outdoors and RFID tags indoors. It then presents information about nearby points of interest by comparing the detected coordinates to stored location data. The document outlines the hardware and software design of the device and presents test results demonstrating its indoor and outdoor navigation capabilities.

1. International Journal of Electronics and Communication Engineering & Technology (IJECET), ISSN
0976 – 6464(Print), ISSN 0976 – 6472(Online) Volume 4, Issue 4, July-August (2013), © IAEME
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MOBILE TOUR GUIDE COMBINING GPS AND RFID
Pradnya K. Dhamal1
, Prof. Virendra V. Shete2
, Prof. S.B.Somani3
Department of ENTC, MIT College of engineering,
Pune-411038, Maharashtra, India
ABSTRACT
Nowadays there are various methods to guide people at various places in a best way possible
to facilitate information exchanges between visitors and guiders. Various museums, historical places,
educational institutions provide physical surroundings for visiting people to get the knowledge and
get entertained. With the improvement of science and technology, the touring services are improving
continuously, which have went through phases like pamphlets; traditional audio guide; smart mobile
multimedia guides.
This device is designed and fabricated as a ‘GUIDE’ which will guide the visitors by giving
the information about various places in a campus as well as inside a building. It will guide the
visitors in the form of text, audio as well as pictures .Low cost, easy access, portability are the main
features of the device.
Keywords: localization techniques, RFID, GPS, PDA, triangulation
I. INTRODUCTION
Localization can be divided into two categories, depending on the way the user’s location is
determined: direct and indirect (i.e., by proxy). Direct localization methods produce an absolute
coordinate tuple to identify visitor location. Such methods include GPS, Wi-Fi triangulation and
mobile phone network triangulation. With indirect localization, localization is inferred via ‘‘active’’
or ‘‘passive’’ elements whose position is known to the system.
When the user interacts with these elements the system can infer that the user is near the
element’s position in the environment. IrDA, RFID, Bluetooth, bar-coding as well as image
recognition can be identified as indirect localization methods. It is also possible to avoid automated
localization and rely on the user to indicate the location. This can be accomplished by tapping on a
map, on an exhibit icon or even by simply typing in an exhibit code. Limitations on human resources,
difficulties in organising qualified people as a guide lead us to design a smart guide which will give
the information in pictorial, text, as well as audio format.
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ISSN 0976 – 6464(Print)
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II. STATE OF THE ART
A ‘sotto voce’ [2] which provides information to the individuals as well as facilitates social
interaction between them .But it supports only audio data. In [3] they provide navigation aids based
both on maps and direction giving. In order to involve a group in the decision making process of
navigation they use a mobile device with a small projector. Current devices use GPS technology [5]
to navigate visitors, but can be used only in outdoors. So, it can not be an alternative to our device.
Hence, we have developed this smart guide to operate in indoor as well as outdoor easily.
Table 1 consists of a comparison between our smart guide and current guiding devices.
TABLE I
COMPARISON BETWEEN CURRENT DEVICES AND OUR DEVICE
Current
Devices
Our Device
Cost High Low
Upgradable Yes No
Multi-
functionality
No* Yes**
User friendly Yes Yes
*Only vocal output; **Vocal, pictorial, and text output
As it can be seen in Table 1, multi-functionality, i.e. being able to provide the visitors of a
place with pictorial, vocal and text information regarding an object, as well as low cost of fabrication
are the two main advantages of our smart guide compared to current devices.
Advantages of this guide are summarized as follows:
1. It gives the output in Pictorial, vocal, as well as text formats. So, it helps in enhancing
visitors’ interest regarding an object or a place.
2. Capability to easily turn off and on.
3. As recording of an audio clip is done by manager, he is able to offer versatility of a language.
4. Device is portable as well as minimizes noise since we can connect headphones whenever
silence zones are there.
5. It overcomes human guides’ limitations as they can become restless after some time and skip
some of useful information, so that visitor would not get proper learning.
III. HARDWARE
All the parts employed to fabricate this guide, are presented in this section.
A. LPC 2138
LPC 2138 are the microcontrollers based on ARM7 TDMI-S CPU. They are widely used in
portable applications. They are 16/32-bit ARM7TDMI-S microcontroller in a tiny LQFP64 package,
8/16/32 kB of on-chip static RAM and 32/64/512 kB of on-chip Flash program memory, 128 bit
wide interface/accelerator enables high speed 60 MHz operation,

3. International Journal of Electronics and Communication Engineering & Technology (IJECET), ISSN
0976 – 6464(Print), ISSN 0976 – 6472(Online) Volume 4, Issue 4, July-August (2013), © IAEME
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In-System/In-Application Programming (ISP/IAP) via on-chip boot-loader software. Single
Flash sector or full chip erase in 400 ms and programming of 256 bytes in 1 millisecond.
B. Memory
Secure Digital (SD) is a non-volatile memory card format developed for use in portable
devices such as our guide device. It will store the data related to various places.
C. Graphical LCD
LCD is used to display the information as well as pictures related to objects and places. The
model RG128643 YFHLYB-D is used. To display text as well as pictures both of them are converted
to array using LCD assistant bitmap converter which will produce text file from bitmap images so
that we can copy this data array from text file into our program.
D. Charger
This charger is used to charge the battery which provides the power to whole circuit.
E. GPS receiver
This is the receiver which will give position in terms of longitude and latitude of various
places. We are using GPS 1100 smart antenna.
They are the mini size, high performance and have low power consumption.
It is having 12 parallel satellite-tracking channels for fast acquisition and reacquisition,
Provide superior navigation performance in urban canyon and foliage environments, Support
NMEA0183 v3.01 data protocol, has built-in patch antenna, also backup battery is supported.
We have connected GPS receiver through UART with the ARM 7.
For comparing the stored and received co-ordinates we are using GPRMC string from the GPS data.
GPRMC (Recommended minimum specification) string is having the format:
$GPRMC,093931,A,3536.5987,N,13944.8905,E,000.0,090.7,241203,,,A*76, where
1. Sentence ID: $GPRMC
2. UTC of position fix*1: 093931
3. Status: A (data valid)
4. Latitude: 3536.5987
5. North/South: N
6. Longitude: 13944.8905
7. East/West: E
8. Speed over ground: 000.0
9. Course over ground: 090.7 degrees
10. Date: 200313
11. Mode Indicator: A (autonomous)
12. Checksum: 76
From above data, we need latitude and longitude for location defining. So that whenever user
goes at particular place the received co-ordinates from satellite will be compared with already stored
co- ordinates and user will be given relative information about that place.
F. MAX232
This is RS232 to TTL convertor as Microcontroller understands only TTL input. A MAX 232
is used for the interfacing our system with the GPS. The Communication between GPS and the
system is serial communication through UART.

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G. Keypad
Keypad is used for up, down movement of text on LCD screen. We are using 4*1 keypad for
this. The pins of keypad are used for following functions,
Pin 1: Scroll up
Pin 2: Scroll down
Pin 3: Exit
Pin 4: NA
H. Audio amplifier
It is used to listen audio information at the visitor end. We have used LM 386 power
amplifier for this purpose.
I. RFID reader
RFID reader will read the tags which are attached to objects and the information about that
object will be displayed. We are using Micro RWD H4001 “Wiegand” output version. It supports
both the 26 and 36 bit output protocols but we are using 26 bit. The Wiegand protocol (26 bit mode)
itself is made up of a leading even parity bit (for b0 - b11), 24 bits of data (from transponder data)
and a trailing odd parity bit (for b12- b23). For example:-
‘H4001’ tag data (Hex): 04 60 22 12 75
Wiegand 26 bit sequence:-
E (b0 --------- b11) (b12 -------- b23) O
E (0 4 6 0 2 2 ) O
1 0000 0100 0110 0000 0010 0010 1
Where E is EVEN parity bit for bit 0 to 11 and O is ODD parity bit for bits 12 to 23.
Based on above descriptions, Fig. 1 shows the block diagram of the hardware design.
To main circuit in Fig.2
Fig.1 Block Diagram of Hardware Design 1
Fig.2 Block Diagram of Hardware Design 2
Charger
Battery 5VDC
Voltage regulator
MAX232 Microcontroller Audio
amplifier
GPS
receiver
RFID
reader
Memory
Keypad
Graphical
LCD

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IV. SOFTWARE DESIGN
Following are the various softwares used for designing smart guide device:
A. ORCAD
The schematic diagram forms main input document for preparation of the layout. For this
purpose the software for PCB design, ORCAD was used.
B. Proteus
By using this software PCB layout is done.
C. Keil C
It is leading software development platform. It integrates all tools including C compiler,
assembler, linker/locator, HEX file generator.
D. Flash Magic
Flash magic can control the entry into ISP mode of some microcontroller devices by using
the COM port handshaking signals to control the device. We have used it for downloading our
program into the board.
V. TESTING AND RESULTS
The implemented smart guide is successfully tested for both indoor and outdoor locations.
GPS testing is done by connecting it to the COM port of PC as shown in figure 1 .Output strings
were observed on hyperterminal of PC. Unless we get the active GPRMC string; we have to go on
receiving the signal.
Fig.3 GPS testing set up
Fig.4 Data Strings obtained at hyperterminal of PC

6. International Journal of Electronics and Communication Engineering & Technology (IJECET), ISSN
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Below are some snapshots of working hardware.
Fig.5 Working hardware
To evaluate the performance of the implemented smart guide, it is necessary to divide it in
two parts: the GPS and the RFID system. But it is important to know that both systems runs
simultaneously, i.e., in outdoor where GPS is present, the system is always scanning for RFID
signals, and in indoor locations, where GPS signal is weak, it keeps trying to obtain a fix on the
current position.
GPS is very reliable source for location identification and so is the RFID, so our guide works
pretty well in outdoor as well as indoor .But the resolution of a GPS is of great concern if a visitor
wants to visit nearer outdoor locations.
VI. CONCLUSION and FUTURE WORK
In this work we designed a smart guide for educational sectors such as colleges, science
exhibitions, institutes etc. The device is capable of providing a visitor with vocal, text and pictorial
information so as to get betterment of learning and tour experience. As a future scope we can
incorporate two way communication that is user can ask the queries to the manager of a place .It’s
low price, easy access, to be used by all range of ages, are main features that distinguish our smart
guide from all current devices.
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