Content Aware Luggage: Enabling Virtual Access to Internal Contents

Content Aware Luggage: Enabling Virtual Access to Internal Contents

Huang, D.

Horváth, I. (mentor)
de Smit, A. (mentor)

Industrial Design Engineering

Design Engineering

IPD

2016-07-25

The travel industry has changed a lot since the 1800’s - from ox-wagons, to horse and buggies, to trains and eventually, to airplanes. However, even with the current technology available, suitcases today still mostly focus only on material and structure changes when it comes to improvement. This may improve ergonomics and reliability of the suitcase itself, but it does not aid the user in the process of packing nor informing him/her about the items within the suitcase. By crossing the analog boundaries and entering the digital realm, it gives much possibility in the area of innovation. The result of this project was a concept design of a content aware luggage system, which consists of a technology embedded suitcase and a connected app. NARUS, the content aware luggage, succeeds in providing the user with a more efficient packing and travel experience through the use of cyber-physical systems. The main features of NARUS are: Packing List Generation Item Tracking Virtual Access The “Packing List Generation” feature shortens the planning and packing time for users by automatically extracting data from the user’s flight and hotel information and then generating a packing list based on the user’s previous preferences, duration, weather, and etc. This allows the user to confidently pack, without the unnecessary hassle of spending extra time looking up weather information and calculating how many outfits to bring for the trip. The “Item Tracking” feature uses the cameras embedded in the suitcase and object recognition to check items off the packing list and to remember the contents that were packed for the trip. The feature gives users’ peace of mind that they did not forget anything and that they will not forget anything on the way back. This feature also gives an estimate of the current weight of the suitcase as the user packs. The third feature, “Virtual Access,” allows the user to virtually look into their suitcase with their app. This is done through the 3D depth sensing cameras in the suitcase. This virtual access feature allows the user to travel more confidently and conveniently by giving the option to quickly look on their app to check for items and their location, without opening the physical suitcase. If the user is travelling with more than one suitcase, this feature also allows the user to virtually find things in a suitcase first, preventing them from opening multiple suitcases unnecessarily. User tests show that using this app before looking for an item in the suitcase led to significantly shorter search times.

suitcase
smart luggage
content aware

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:1684075c-e71c-4a36-94fc-1b328dde0023

Campus only

Student theses

master thesis

(c) 2016 Huang, D.