Augmented reality concept to improve public awareness and safety at the beach

Alarcão, Rodrigo Ferreira dos Santos Perestrello de

http://hdl.handle.net/10400.26/36855

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Authors

Alarcão, Rodrigo Ferreira dos Santos Perestrello de

Advisor(s)

Pestana, Gabriel

Abstract(s)

Rip currents pose a threat to the safety of bathers at most beaches around the world. Risk perception and swimming preference are critical factors for safety at beaches. In general, the inability to detect a rip current and a false sense of security may lead to situations where people are confronted with unforeseen dangers. The presented research intends to contribute to improving beach safety with situational-awareness data to keep bathers informed about undergoing dangers on a selected beach. As such, the need to create a beach-safety culture and a provocative social conscience in adopting safety behaviors at the beach, during leisure time, is a ground-breaking goal. The research presents a study regarding people understanding about rip currents and other (potential) beach dangerous situations and analyze their willingness to integrate a community of users and to collaboratively contribute to improving safety at the beach, in particular for social groups with children, older adults and citizens who would like to improve their beach-safety literacy. The proposed approach includes the specification of a platform to empower the user in becoming an active beach-safety agent. For this strategic objective, a service design approach was implemented to conceptualize a solution for collecting data about potential hazards, including information on the status of active rip currents. The innovation is settled over the combination of immersive technologies (e.g., Augmented Reality) with visual data analytics and Artificial Intelligence (AI), in particular Deep Learning algorithms for image processing. Mobile Augmented Reality mixed with a gamification strategy are two other technologies considered in the architectural design of an interactive and gamified environment in promoting a beach-safety behavior. Such a mobile tool also addresses a strategy to create a social movement challenging citizens to integrate and benefit from the services and informational artifacts provided by the Beach Safety Community (BSC).