Beyond GPS: The Future of Navigation with Artificial Intelligence and Augmented Reality

This paper explores the utilization of Augmented Reality (AR) alongside an Artificial Intelligence (AI) driven navigation agent to support real time environmental tracking, in a manner that provides user-oriented interactions with mobile technologies. Large university campuses can be very challenging for new students, visitors, and staff. Many a time it becomes harder to locate one’s destination due to the intricate measures of the pathways, and, as such, it could be perceived as an issue affecting the productivity and frustration of the student. In this paper, we introduce an AI-AR solution for navigation designed for large universities. The system uses real-time space understanding, learning from behaviour to predict where one wants to go in real-time, and an overlay of AR graphic data to visually nudge the user in the right direction of their journey. The main feature is the SLAM for accurate indoor navigation, with edge computing to reduce latency, and the computer vision algorithm for understanding the walkable area and obstructing obstacles. The proposed framework combines AI modules to deliver optimized routing dynamically based on real-time crowd density and user behaviour, whereas ARKit and ARCore overlay navigation paths over the user’s environment seamlessly. The solution becomes comprehensive further by supplying other accessibility features encompassing voice guidance, haptic feedback and multilingual support that are all inclusive for all diverse users. The architecture includes Unity, TensorFlow and PyTorch so as to remain cross-platform compatible and have strong AI-model training methodologies. It addresses some limitations of legacy GPS-based navigation in indoor environments where signal is usually fragile.