Developing an Android application in conjunction with BLE beacons to enhance visitor's experience in a museum

Abstract

Singapore has more than 40 museums around the island with some of the most visited being the National Museum of Singapore and the National Gallery Singapore. These museums usually provide a companion mobile application for the user to engage with as they explore the museum. Some of the features these applications may include are a built-in QR scanner, for the visitor to interact with QR codes around the museum, and a built-in map, for the visitor to navigate around the museum. With the museums being indoors, visitors are unable to use GPS for their navigation and must rely on a static map instead. Bluetooth beacons are a class of Bluetooth low energy devices that broadcast their identifier to nearby portable electronic devices. This technology enables smartphones, tablets, and other devices to perform actions when near a beacon. The objective of this project is to develop an Android-based application, with the aid of BLE beacons, that will be able to enhance a visitors’ experience in a museum. This project aims to implement 3 key features including proximity messaging, location tracking and indoor navigation.