TECHNICAL SEMINAR SMART SIGNAGE

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

Public displays were present in the world in the form of paper board, posters, banners, black
boards and white boards. They were used as a mean of communication, information &
interaction by the community for different events, awareness, greetings and displaying of
information to the people where they were installed. This digital media is the platform to
effectively reach employees, students, customers, and partners. This digital media is used to
convey important information and messages such as news, training material, and information
about upcoming or current events. Digital media is effective because it brings familiarity and
closeness to modern communications.

With the passage of time digital signage (a form of electronic display showing information,
advertisements and messages) emerged and became a properly growing field. The digital
signage is being in use as an alternative for traditional means of display that was mainly paper-
bounded. The public spaces are now transforming from traditional sign boards to digital
displays which enable the new form of presentation and experiences. The costs of digital
displays are decreasing and the use of digital displays is becoming common in the public
spaces with the fast enhancement in sensors technology. The usefulness of these systems
depends on the content presented on the displays, the place where the display is installed and
how these contents are controlled. Digital media represents an emerging new communication
technology; in particular digital signage is rapidly gaining popularity today.

Digital signage is emerging as a new communication technology. A digital sign is defined as

an electronic display that shows information, advertising, or other messages. This is the
solution for replacing all traditional billboards present in today’s society. These are designed to
provide advertisements on large screens for undefined groups of people who can be found in
schools and universities, cafes and malls, research laboratories and government agencies and
other public places. The use of this medium until today has been very extensive and can be
found in several scenarios, such as information on departure at the airport, guide visitors in a
building, and the menu information in a restaurant. However, the main focus of this medium is
to display information with dynamic and manageable content.

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"Digital signage is a network of customizable displays that can be controlled electronically
using a computer, allowing content to be changed remotely for the most targeted messaging
possible". The goals of the digital signage systems, their locations, and target audiences are
vital parameters for designing the logic of selecting the relevant information to be shown.
Digital signage can be implemented using liquid crystal displays, light emitting diodes, digital
projection, plasma displays, and so on. Personalization is currently one of the critical factors of
a successful advertisement. As a result, it is necessary to have an algorithm that could provide
a viewer with relevant information that can be used in airports, research organizations,
shopping malls, railway stations, and restaurants to dynamically deliver information, graphics,
animations, videos, text, and other web contents on a (high quality) display to targeted viewers
at a specific time.

The digital signage is being in use as an alternative for traditional means of display that was
mainly paper-bounded .Smart signage also introduces a term known as ‘Engagement’ which is
a powerful term which is believed to be one of the most important key elements for advertising
efforts to pay off to be successful . The reason is that an engaged advertisement viewer is more
likely to turn from an advertisement viewer into a potential buyer. Advertisements serve as the
medium to convey the product message to the audience in order to improve the overall sales
for a particular business so they can evaluate the advertisements if they are promoting the
service or product in an effective way.

Digital signage is evolving from a unidirectional advertising tool to smart signage that provides
bidirectional and interactive services. Then, the smart signage’s change contents on the screen
according to the context information. However, previous signage systems have difficulty in
connecting new sensing devices to the systems because there is no standard to connect signage
system and sensing devices. However, previous signage systems have difficulty in connecting
new sensing devices to the systems because there is no standard to connect signage system and
sensing devices.
CHAPTER 2

LITERATURE SURVEY

[1] “Development of IoT based Smart Signage Platform” by Sunghee Lee, Ilhong Shin,
and Namkyung LeeMedia Research Laboratory Electronics and Telecommunications
Research Institute Daejeon, Korea.

This paper talks about digital signage is evolving to smart signage which provides
personalized service by adaptively changing contents according to the user context. However,
previous smart signage services have difficulty to expand their service because it is not easy
to connect additional sensing devices. In this paper, we propose an IOT based smart signage
platform. The proposed platform provides IOT based connectivity between sensors and
signage platform for flexible service extension. Therefore, our platform can make a service
group of signage dynamically and enables signage to collaborate for a service in a wide area.
To show the performance of the proposed platform, we implemented smart nursing home
service. The service shows that IOT devices and signage can be connected to the platform
dynamically and collaborate for a service in a wide area.
Digital signage is evolving from a unidirectional advertising tool to smart signage that
provides bidirectional and interactive services. Smart signage collects user contexts from
various sensors and wearable devices. Also, previous signage systems normally consider
single signage for a service and contents have to be mash up according to the type of signage
group. In this paper, we propose an IOT based smart signage platform. Our platform support
connectivity between signage platforms and devices based on oneM2M standard. Therefore,
IOT sensors, and signage can collaborate in the wide area for more various services. To show
the performance of proposed platform, we developed smart nursing home service based on
the proposed platform. The service monitors health status of users and detects emergency
situation using smart band. Then, multiple signage in the nursing home collaborate to alert
emergency situation. If emergency is occurred, the service sounds an alarm to notify the
emergency from the control room and gives information such as medial history of patient,
current status, and location to the nurses in the control room using signage.
[2] “An Engagement Framework for Digital Signage” by Sue Hong Steven Wong, Meng
Chew Leow, Siong Hoe Lau, Faculty of Information Science and Technology Multimedia
University.

This paper talks that Engagement is a term that is used by many scholars to find out how
advertising efforts can be successful. It has been applied in TV advertising, online advertising
and mobile advertising. It has the ability to deliver information in various forms of media
elements makes it a popular option in the advertising field and helps to explore how
engagement of advertising using digital signage can benefit the advertisers and the
consumers. This paper proposes an engagement framework for digital signage. Engagement
in digital signage works like a continuum and it is achieved from the cognitive and emotional
experiences evoked from the advertisement audience to their behavioral responses from their
experiences.
Engagement plays an important part in advertising which helps to determine if the advertised
product is able to hit success in the industry. This paper aims to provide a framework to
illustrate how engagement works in the context of digital signage. The proposed framework
about this paper is believed to enable future researchers to understand engagement better for
deeper studies on digital signage. Additionally, today’s advertisers who utilize digital signage
can also know better on the significance of engagement in the process of reaching their
audience and this framework focuses on the advertising process using digital signage.
Secondly, this framework focuses on the advertising process using digital signage.
Consequently, this limits its application but tells the mindset of the people.

[3] “An Indoor Position System based on Dynamic Digital Signage and Mobile Devices”
by Chen-Cong Gan, Yih-Jiun Lee, Kai-Wen Lien , Dept. of Information Communications
Chinese Culture University Taipei, Taiwan.

This paper tells that GPS has become a significant technology in our daily life and has been
the most popular positioning technology on cellular phones (devices). Although it does
manage most of way finding problems, indoor navigation is difficult without the satellite
signals. Way finding is even more difficult if users are in a large building with a complicated
layout, such as museums and shopping sensors or other devices or improve positioning
algorithm. This paper aims to solve the problem through the collaboration of mobile
applications and digital signage while making the performance of digital marketing and
information dissemination more effective. The system is based on low-cost wireless
communication technologies to build an indoor position and navigation system and a
personalized signage service to offer a more accurate position and marketing information on
demand.
Mobile information technologies make navigation even easier than ever. When a user gets
lost outside a building, one can always check the location and navigation on the smart phone
if satellites and network are available. A combination of digital signage and mobile
application is proposed in the paper.
In this paper, an indoor position system with digital signage management system is proposed
and implemented to support indoor way finding and ambient advertising. With mobile
devices and digital signage, pedestrians’ confidence of way finding should be improved.

[4] “Lightweight Smart Screen Architecture for Multichannel Control Advertising

Display” by Vittayasak Rujivorakul, Sujitra Arwatchananukul, Nattapol Aunsri of School of
Information Technology Mae Fah Luang University Chiang Rai, Thailand.

This paper tells that the advertising industry has shifted from paper to the daily live location
of the target the customers. With the demand for advertising for fast performance and low
cost, organizations need to shift from traditional media management architecture to a
lightweight architecture. The proposed architecture can help advertisers or organizations to
save on hardware costs, manage their content, and to be able to format their impressions in
real time, and the number of displays can be expanded indefinitely. The architecture also
offers low-cost hardware and software development methods, including real-time
management and control. After installing the system developed with the proposed
architecture, the system is evaluated by gathering feedback from developers, system
administrators, and users. The results demonstrate superiority to the traditional architectural
design and the proposed architecture is expected to be ready to expand into commercial
services.
This paper proposes the architecture for the lightweight smart ads display system with the
low cost of hardware and software implementation. The five objectives that include are real-
time, lightweight, scalable, portable, and easy to use is achieved and it provides significant key
quality attributes like performance, usability, maintainability, portability.
[5] “Low-cost Managed Digital Signage System with Signage Device using Small-sized
and Low-cost Information Device” by Kazuhiro Mishima, Takeshi Sakurada, Yoichi
Hagiwara Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology Koganei, Tokyo.

This paper tells that the digital signage systems using some computer devices are widely used
for displaying some information, unlike wall advertisements that are unchanged for a certain
period. At the replacement time of our university's digital signage system, we need to
implement cost effective digital signage system. This paper conveys a brand-new style of the
digital signage display device using low-cost information device and open intensive
management system. In this demonstration, we introduce the total signage systems that
include the signage display device and the digital signage device / content management
system. We introduce the system implementation of our cost-effective and autonomous-style
digital signage management system.

[6] “Towards Providing Relevant Digital Signage Advertisement to a Group of Users

Based on User Interests Investigation” by Polina Morozova, Nikolay Shilov ,TMO
University, St.Petersburg, Russia.

Nowadays an advertisement becomes more and more personal. Usually, internet data mining
algorithms collect information about user’s activities, analyze it and offer the most relevant
context advertisement. But it is much more complicated to find information to show to a
group of viewers in public places. This happens due to privacy restrictions and lack of
algorithms that would allow finding mutual interests for a group of users. In this article, an
approach to solving these problems through analysis of multiple visual viewers’
characteristics is proposed. In this article, an analysis of main pain points of providing
personalized advertisement through digital signage to a group of users has been done. The
results of this experiment showed that selected technical tools provide suitable accuracy in
calculating the requested data. However, correlations between emotions and product
attractiveness have not been found.
[7] “Digital Signage Personalization for Smart City: Major Requirements and
Approach” by Nikolay Shilov, Oxana Smirnova, Polina Morozova, Nikolay Turo , Maksim
Shchekotov, Nikolay Teslya SPIIRAS, St.Petersburg, Russia,ITMO University,
St.Petersburg, Russia.

Providing information in smart cities is possible in various ways. Digital signage is one of
such options. However, personalization and contextualization of digital signage is
complicated due to both technological and legislative reasons. When providing contextual
information to a group of users, consideration of preferences and interests of users is
complicated by a number of additional problems, most of which are related to identifying
preferences / interests common to this group of users, as well as to their confidentiality. At
the moment, such solutions do not exist. The paper presents a methodology of building a
personalized digital signage system taking into account confidentiality and using tacit
feedback to clarify the information provided, as well as information about users. The paper
analyses the problem domain of personalized digital signage for smart cities and proposes a
methodology aimed at preserving and feedback is collected through image analysis
techniques that are capable to identify gender, age, and emotions of people quite reliable
check of emotions of the public. To check the appropriateness of the suggested methodology
an experiment has been conducted aimed at investigation of the possibility of emotion change
due to viewing an image.

[8] “Implementation of Digital Signage Based on Embedded System and IoT Using Mac
Address as an Identifier on Laboratory In-Out Announcer Board” by Heruwanto,
Wayan Mustika, Selo of Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology
Engineering Faculty, UGM Yogyakarta, Indonesia.

This paper tells that the rapid development and utilization of information technology, mostly
in the use of digital signage and Internet of Things (IoT) have penetrated into all areas where
the implementation has so many benefits and convenience. Hence, the implementation of IoT-
based digital signage for in-out lecturer announcement board and staff is deemed important to
be done, particularly in supporting the concept of smart laboratory applied in the Laboratory of
Electronic Systems Department Electrical Engineering and Information Technology, Faculty of
Engineering UGM. This paper tells about the implementation of
IoT-based digital signage for in-out lecturers and staff members of the Electronic Systems
Laboratory is developed by means of WEB-based interface, while for the identification of
laboratory members existence it uses Raspberry Pi as an embedded system by utilizing user-
owned device Mac address connected to the laboratory Wi-Fi hotspot. The in-out status is
always updated automatically according to the connectivity of laboratory member's devices
with Wi-Fi hotspot.
From the implementation results, it is indicated that the Digital Signage Based Embedded
System and IoT by Utilizing Mac Address as an Identifier on Board Announcement In-Out
Laboratory can be successfully implemented. Thus, it can be used to get the address that is
needed for digital signage for bulletin boards and status boards in/out lab members,
automatically utilizing the user's Mac address connected to the Wi-Fi hotspot.

[9] “Design and Implementation of Smart Advertisement Display Board Prototype” by

Fauzi Murtadho, Dodi Wisaksono Sudiharto, Catur Wirawan Wijiutomo, Endro Ariyanto
School of Computing Telkom University Bandung, Indonesia.

Habitually, the traditional advertisement display exhibits no feature which informs the user
intention. The owner just predicts the advertisement effectiveness based on the product
selling or the visitors. Therefore, there is a requirement related to a signage which
demonstrates an ability to detect user attention and enables to record it instantly. Early
detection according to user fascination to the advertisement display is not only for gathering
data but also for providing feedback to the user about its detail. For example, if there is
advertisement presents which are a bag, a hat, and jewelry. Those presents are still the
random pattern. Since the target user fascinates to one of the advertisements, such as a hat,
then the system is going to exhibit only the hat and anything related to the hat. The frames
recorded are going to be processed to find the face and eyes features for potential intention
marking. The potential intention defined then is sensed by counting the appearance rate to
define the intention more accurately. The success rate of the proposed system is 68.57% for
identifying user intention. In addition, the proposed system also performs the ability to collect
data related to the advertisement which the most popular. Based on the assessment result, the
smart advertisement display is to be operated. It can show the frequency of advertisement
pattern seen by the target visitors properly. The success rate is 68.57% respectively.
CHAPTER 3

DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION

3.1 IoT Based connection between sensors and signage platform:

Digital signage is evolving from a unidirectional advertising tool to smart signage that
provides bidirectional and interactive services. Smart signage collects user contexts from
various sensors and wearable devices. Then, the smart signage change contents on the screen
according to the context information. Therefore, users can be served various personalized and
targeted services. The more context information is collected, the more variety and fine-tuned
personalized service can be served.

However, previous signage systems have difficulty in connecting new sensing devices
to the systems because there is no standard to connect signage system and sensing devices.
Also, previous signage systems normally consider single signage for a service. Thus, it is
hard to provide services in wide area with multiple signages such as disaster notification and
continuous targeted commercial. For wide area service with multiple signages, signage
groups should be created dynamically, and contents must be mash up according to the type of
signage group. Our platform support connectivity between signage platform and devices
based on oneM2M standard. Therefore, devices which support oneM2M can be automatically
connected to signage platform and signage platform can control behavior of actuator devices
based on collected context information.

Also,the agent program for signage to provide oneM2M connectivity. In this platform,
signage also can be connected automatically, send status information, and be controlled by
signage platform like other IOT devices using the agent program. Therefore, IOT sensors,
actuators, and signage can collaborate in the wide area for more various services.

To indicate the performance of proposed platform, a model of smart nursing home is

given as example in the upcoming session. The service monitors health status of users and
detects emergency using smart band. Then, multiple signage and actuators in the nursing
home collaborate to alert emergency.
 Fig.1 Architecture of IOT based signage platform

Fig.1 shows overall architecture of IOT based smart signage platform. The proposed
platform consist of IOTP (IOT Platform), SSH (Smart Signage IOT Hub), SP (Smart Signage
Service Platform), signage, sensors, wearable devices, and actuators. IOTP provides
oneM2M based connectivity between IOT devices and SP. It also provides API’s for SP to
collect data from IOT devices and controls actuator including signage. SSH is a gateway for
IOT devices. SSH has number of network interfaces such as ZigBee, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Z-
wave for connecting IOT devices which support different type of network interfaces.
SP consist of three modules CAM (Context Aware Module), SCM (Service Control
Module), SGMM (Signage Group Management Module), and CMM (Contents Mashup
Module). CAM collects information of IOT sensors, wearable devices, and signage by using
IOTP’s APIs and decides status of users and signage based on collected information. Then,
CAM decides user contexts based on information from sensors and signage. SCM controls
the service flow according to the user status. If the status of users is changed, signage
dynamically configures groups to display proper contents one the screen even in a wide area.
For dynamic signage grouping, SCM sends grouping requests to SGMM and mash up
requests to CMM for reconfigure contents according to the configuration of new signage
group. SGMM manages join and leave of signage in the signage group. Also, SGMM
dynamically configure signage group for signage collaboration service. CMM perform
contents mash up according to the configuration of signage group. Each signage has DA
(Device Agent) and player.

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 DA is a module that allows signage to communicate with the IOT platform and player
plays content on the screen. By using the DA module, signage can be connected to the
signage platform easily, send status, and receive control message from SP. By using the
proposed architecture, sensors, wearable devices, actuators, and signage can be connected
automatically to the signage platform. Also, signage can be grouped dynamically and
collaborate to serve context based personalized contents in wide area. Therefore, our
proposed platform can provide screen for screen less IOT devices and be used for wide area
public notification such as evacuation route guidance in disaster situation. Also, our platform
can improve the effect of commercial or exhibition by adaptively changing, combining, and
separating contents according to the movement of user and signages.

3.1.1 Smart Nursing Home Service with IOT based smart signage:

Fig.2 Structure of smart nursing home

To shows the performance of the architecture, a smart nursing home service based on
the proposed IOT based smart signage platform was implemented. Figure shows the service
structure of smart nursing home.

In the service, it is assumed that there are two signage’s present in form of two rows
and one column in the control room and there is single signage in public space such as
restroom and dining room. Each patient in the nursing home is wearing smart band that can
measure heart rate and the number of steps. Also, sensors that measuring humidity,

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temperature, occupancy of patient, intensity of illumination and actuators such as switch,
siren, and smart bulb are located all over the place in nursing home, smart band, sensors, and
actuators are connected to the SP through SSH and IOTP based one oneM2M feature.
Signages are also connected to
SSH like other oneM2M device using DA. IOT devices
including signage report their status and receive control message from SP through IOTP and
SSH. The SP provides APIs to get the status of IOT sensors, to control actuators including
signage, and to make groups of signage. By using the APIS the service can be configured
according to the requirements of service provider. There are two major scenarios in our
service: a normal situation and an emergency. In normal situation, signage in the control
room display patients and environmental status as shown in Figure.3.

Fig.3 Signage in control room in normal situations

The top left signage displays the list of patients and shows the heart rate, number of steps,
and temperature of each patient. The bottom left signage displays location of patients on the
map. The top right signage displays the environmental status of nursing home like humidity,
temperature, and working crew. The bottom right signage displays CCTV which can monitor
public places and sick rooms in nursing home. Signage in the control room can recognize
their attachment and detachment using IR sensors as shown in Fig. 4.
 Fig.4 Attachment/ Detachment sensor and multisession screen

When the signage is attached, they become a multi-vision screen. The attachment and
detachment information are reported to the platform through DA. Once the CAM receives the
information, ask SGMM to reconfigure the signage group and CMM to mash up content for
the multi-vision screen. In normal situation, the multi-vision is used for meeting and briefing
between nurses. Right picture on Figure shows dynamically configured multi-vision screen.
In emergency, signage and actuators collaborate to alert to the control room and to help first
aid. We consider two emergency scenarios. In first scenario, a patient has a cardiac arrest. If a
patient who wearing a smart band has cardiac arrest, our platform detects the emergency and
notify it to the control room. Fig.5 shows the screen of the signage in control room.

Fig.5 Control room Signage in emergency situations

The top left signage highlights the patient and moves the patient to the top of the patients list.
The bottom left signage highlights the location where the emergency occurred. The content on
the top right signage is changed from environmental information to the specific information
about the patient and the bottom right signage close the CCTV where the patient fell. If the
signage in the control room is attached, multi-vision is configured, and CCTV can be observed
more closely in multi-vision as shown in Fig. 7.

Figure.6 Action of actuators

The second scenario is disappearance of patients. If a patient has a disease like

Alzheimer’s, location of the patient must be monitored always. In this scenario, the service
detects disappearance of the patient in a bed using an occupancy sensor. In night, if a patient
is sleeping in the bed, a bulb near the patient is off and a fan is on. If a patient moves out
from the bed, sensor using radar detects the movement of the patient and the service turns off
the fan and turns on the bulb. Then, the service warns to control room using signage to help
nurses to grasp the situation. As in the first scenario, the disappeared patient is highlighted on
the patient location screen. The CCTV screen which was recording the patient is closed an
nurses can check the location even in night as the bulb is automatically turned on Fig.6 shows
the operation of the actuators according to the absence or presence of the patient.

Fig.7 Dynamic configuration of multi-vision screen in emergency

3.2 The Indoor positioning system (IPS):

An indoor positioning system (IPS) is a system used to locate objects or people inside
a building using lights, radio waves, magnetic fields, acoustic signals, or other sensory
information. There are several commercial systems on the market, but there is no standard for
an IPS system.

Indoor positioning systems use different technologies, including distance

measurement to nearby anchor nodes (nodes with known fixed positions, e.g. Wi-Fi/Li-Fi
access points or Bluetooth beacons), magnetic positioning, and dead reckoning. They either
actively locate mobile devices and tags or provide ambient location or environmental context
for devices to get sensed.

The localized nature of an IPS has resulted in design fragmentation, with systems
making use of various optical, radio, or even acoustic technologies. For smoothing to
compensate for stochastic (unpredictable) errors there must be a sound method for reducing
the error budget significantly. The system might include information from other systems to
cope for physical ambiguity and to enable error compensation.

Detecting the device's orientation (often referred to as the compass direction in order
to disambiguate it from smart phone vertical orientation) can be achieved either by detecting
landmarks inside images taken in real time, or by using trilateration with beacons. There also
exist technologies for detecting magneto metric information inside buildings or locations with
steel structures or in iron ore mines.

Indoor position can be approached by using wireless communication technologies, such

as Wi-Fi, NFC, and Bluetooth for cost reduction and implementation convenience. Bluetooth
Low Energy (BLE) might be the most popular solution. Therefore, Apple proposed iBeacon
while Google introduced Eddystone, as low costs and high integrated solutions. Unlike the
high energy consumption of WIFI, iBeacon only needs to be awake when needed. With the
information broadcasts, the applications of iBeacon and Eddystone can be easily integrated
into other information systems, such location services. With the popularity of wireless
communication and mobile devices, smart phones have become another possible and low-cost
solution. Pedestrian dead reckoning (PDR) is a common approach for tracking pedestrians.
Steps count of walking and sensors are used to support the calculation on phones.

3.2.1 Building the IPS in signage system:

A. Cloud Services:

The cloud services include Location Service and Content Service as two essential
services. Location Service, working with the predefined building layout and installed
iBeacon, aims for positioning and navigation. The mobile app senses beacon information and
determines current location. Returned information sent to users’ devices with navigation.
Meanwhile, Content Service might be invoked on demand. Content Service is responsible to
manage the content displayed on the digital signage, as a display control service. When
navigation service is not enabled, content service arranges signage display as defined rules.
However, once navigation service is invoked, content service compiles information
dynamically according to users’ request and related information, so personalization is
achieved. Another important job for content service is to display proper content
(advertisement) by referring ambient pedestrian’s preference, which is collected and provided
by the mobile application. In order to facilitate the maintenance of content, a web based
management system is provided for managers and merchant owners. Authorization and
delegation policies are defined in another supplement service. User’s preference and actions
are kept in the cloud service, so data analysis is possible.
B. Mobile Application (devices):

A location services enabled mobile application plays an important role in the system.
The application senses beacons’ data and understands users’ preference and requirements. It
transmits possible information to the content service, so the content on signage can be
different. When navigation is enabled, the app finds its location. It also pulls displaying
content from nearby signage if the user is intrigued. Therefore, the advertisement can be more
accurate and useful. This action is initiated according to users’ willingness, so users actively
“pull” the advertisement.

C. Digital Signage:

Considering the architectural layout and display space, there are two kinds of digital
signage in the system. A simple dynamic direction sign is suitable for a smaller area or at a
corner. It might be a low-cost LED panel and the shown direction is dynamically changed
according to users’ navigation request when he is passing by. A smart digital signage can be
applied to the corridor or in a larger space. The content is controlled by the content service
and shown on the digital signage. The signage can only display advertisements, but also use
to show navigation information when the navigation requirements are being picked up. Since
the signage usually has enough screen space for compartments, location, advertisement and
promotion can be arranged. When a user is interested in a particular advertisement or
information, he can request for further information from the signage through a service, in a
simple click. It is more effective if a user actively “pulls” the advertising information.
Microsoft Azure Machine Learning Studio is used to process the raw data and content-based
filtering recommendation system is involved in the signage management system.

Fig.8 System Architecture

3.3 An Engagement Framework for Digital Signage:
Engagement is a powerful term that has been widely used by many academics and
practitioners to conduct their studies in different domains. In the psychological view,
engagement consists of two components namely “hedonic” and “motivational”. Hedonic
means liking towards something while motivational represents the engagement. Calder and
Malthouse then conceptualize the framework by going the extra mile to study the latter
component in the framework. The authors have come out with two types of motivations
which include intrinsic and extrinsic motivations. Intrinsic motivation associates better if this
theory is applied to TV advertising engagement as it indicates the media experience itself
rather than using media experience to achieve extra goals like extrinsic motivation.
Like any other domains that define engagement differently, there is no exception in the
current advertising literature. In 2006, the Advertising Research Foundation (ARF) came out
with their own definition of engagement stating that “engagement is turning on a prospect to
a brand idea enhanced by the surrounding context”. It is worth mentioning that ever since the
release of this definition, there is a number of academics and practitioners who have widely
adopted this definition to their work. On the other hand, the Interactive Advertising Bureau
(IAB) defines advertising engagement as “A spectrum of consumer advertising activities and
experiences which are cognitive, emotional and physical – that will have a positive impact on
a brand”. The authors believe that engagement is a continuum that consists of different
interconnected dynamics. Also, it is suggested that being able to fully understand all three
types of engagement is able to help advertisers narrow down the gap between the audience
and the advertisements, thus making the advertising campaign more effective. On the other
hand, engagement is also defined as “the amount of subconscious ‘feeling’ going on when an
advertisement is being processed”. This definition distinguishes “engagement” and
“attention” by claiming that engagement involves emotive elements within humans’ sub
consciousness while the latter requires cognition from the humans’ conscious mind.
Obviously, there is no standard definition of the term “engagement” in advertising. It is all
hinges on what the academics are trying to conceptualize in their studies.

A. Dimensionalities of Engagement:
There are two views in terms of the dimension of engagement. In unidimensional view, the
academics and the practitioners believe that engagement is a unidimensional concept of either
the cognitive, emotional or behavioural dimension. However, there are also researchers who
Posit that engagement encompasses the multidimensional concepts that are the combination
of any of the abovementioned concepts. A shining example is that of the Interactive
Advertising Bureau (IAB) which has adopted all three concepts as their groundwork in
defining their engagement continuum metrics.
Among the distinct perspectives of engagement, cognitive and emotional aspects act as the
driving force to create the behavioural aspect. Cognitive dimensionality stimulates the
thinking of the users towards the content they are dealing with, creating the brand awareness
or recalling of content messages. On the other hand, emotional dimensionality stirs up
feelings of the users, revealing how the engendered sentiments affect the content liking. From
these two perspectives, behavioural aspect of engagement can be triggered as a result of
users’ thoughts and feelings, causing them to make the next move towards the content they
have been reached. It is worth mentioning that this engagement does not have to be positive
as it could be negative as well, depending on the experiences evoked on the users.

B. Engagement in Different Context of Use:

In advertising, there are various mediums used to deliver the intended message to the
audience. Remarkable improvements are observed in the technological evolution from
traditional advertising mediums to the modern ones. In a simpler form, advertisements appear
in a presentation on banners and brochures. With the advancement of technology,
advertisements are relayed on digital platforms such as TV, radio stations and billboards.
There are observable differences in the distinct context of use on these mediums. Therefore,
experiences aroused to conceptualize engagement under the different context of use need to
be specified and will be distinct. Due to today’s various advertising mediums, this has caused
the measurement of engagement an even harder field to explore. This is because the
presentation format of the advertisements has evolved tremendously. In the past, we could
possibly see advertisements made of text and images but in today’s world, these
advertisements contain audio and video thanks to technology advancement. Before this,
people could possibly find advertisements only from the newspapers, magazines or see them
on the TV. However, these advertisements are now delivered via more platforms including
billboards, digital signage and the Internet, what we call “digital advertising". Consequently,
this has directly impacted how different environments or contexts of use affect the
engagement of the advertisement viewers. Therefore, both marketers and academics are
starting to go the extra mile to find out how engagement can benefit them as a whole.
According to the prior work by Calder, there are five categories of experiences namely
“interaction”, “transportation”, “discovery”, “identity” and “civic orientation” that give birth
to engagement. Each of the categories possesses a distinct meaning. “Interaction” means to
connect with others, “Transportation” means to escape or become diverted, “Discovery”
means to gain insight, knowledge or skills, “Identity” means to affirm or express one’s
identity and “Civic Orientation” means to contribute to society. In their study, they
emphasize the importance of the different context of use that is not necessarily suitable for all
these categories of experiences. They argue that these categories are able to provide flexible
usability for other work based on the 3 case studies conducted with positive implications
from their results.

In the context of TV advertising, a few researchers have theorized “advertising engagement”

by exploring the theories of immersion and presence. Immersion roots from the interlocking
experience between the viewer and advertisement, causing one to have the experience of
being in another reality. These two terms are also proved to be very much related to
advertising engagement where they have a depth continuum rather than a dichotomous state
of either totally present or totally absent. This shows that engagement cannot simply appear
and disappear but must go through certain stages in order to exist. The authors have also
generated and validated items to measure the engagement of the TV advertising viewership in
their work.

Online services have also undergone intense study on the subject of engagement particularly
in online advertising. Obviously, online advertising is very different from TV advertising in
many ways. Unlike TV advertising, online advertising usually involves a single user sitting in
front of a computer surfing the Internet while doing online shopping. Online advertising has
an advantage over traditional advertising as it gives more exposure to social engagement,
another type of engagement formed upon the online experiences of the users. As a result, the
study of engagement under this context consists of both personal and social-interactive
engagement. They are both represented by various experiences tested in the study including
“stimulation and inspiration”, “social facilitation” and “temporal”, just to name a few. The
authors have also conceptualized online advertising engagement as the result of various
experiences expressed by the users.
We can see many types of advertisement delivery solutions in this day but one overlooked

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platform that academics or scholars should put more emphasis on is digital signage. Even
though the implementation of digital signage is prevalent, the on-going research in this field
is comparatively scarce. Some researchers have started to explore this topic by evaluating
how digital signage can generate different experiences in the audience as a capable device to
improve sales in retailing. The authors have developed a model studying the effects of both
cognitive and emotional content towards the experiences evoked. They believe that both the
intellectual and affective experiences evoked in the audience can influence the attitude
towards the advertisements and the potential approach to the advertisers. Another piece of
work carried out by Garaus and colleagues studies the importance of different types of
content stimuli towards the emotion and cognition evaluation of the public. Their findings
show that purchase intention can be impulsively urged using the affective content on digital
signage.

3.3.1 FRAMEWORK DESIGN

Digital signage is a digital screen that is placed or located in public places to perform several
tasks including spreading information and displaying advertisements. When digital signage is
placed in public places for advertising purposes, it produces certain experiences through the
content displayed to the public, generating the engagement of the audience. This is because
digital signage provides information in various modalities including textual, visual and
auditory elements and it can be implemented almost everywhere to fit in any context in real
time. This makes digital signage a popular option for most advertisers today to advertise their
products and services. The different modalities will elicit different experiences in the
audience and this, in turn, will directly influence the audience engagement towards the
advertisement.

Adopting the conceptual framework by, engagement is formed and encompassed the first-
order experiences which will produce the behavioural responses such as the consumption of a
product or will elicit reaction toward the advertisement. Nevertheless, they state that different
types of experiences would exist in distinct frameworks. Also, claims that different domains
of engagement will require different specific experiences, which in this paper are the
experiences evoked by the digital signage.

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 Fig.9 Proposed Engagement Framework

In the proposed framework, engagement is treated as a process from the experiences evoked
to the behavioural response initiated by the advertisement audience. It is proposed that
engagement is composed of two main components namely brand experience and brand
behaviours’ which will strengthen each other over time. Human beings live with personal
goals and evoked experiences can help achieve these goals by triggering potential
behavioural responses to achieve these goals. For instance, in advertising, a consumer who
intends to purchase something will pull the trigger if he encounters an engaging
advertisement that arouses his experiences such as thoughts and feelings. Hence, the
proposed framework consists of both the evoked experience and behavioural response as the
main components, with the content of the digital signage as the mediating factor. Experiences
of the advertisement audience are greatly influenced by the content of the digital signage.
Therefore, it becomes the determinants of what type of experiences that will be produced in
the audience. In this framework, the experiences evoked are categorized into two main
dimensionalities namely the cognitive and emotional aspects. Even though prior research has
shown the dominance of emotional experience in conceptualizing engagement, the cognitive
experience is still incorporated in this framework for a few reasons. Cognitive experience is
indispensable because an advertisement clearly contributes to cognitive responses aside from
emotional ones. This view is supported by a few studies that have put attention in studying
the effects of cognitive responses. Moreover, cognitive experience enables the advertisement
audience to allocate cognitive resources to process information such as the product details
and price in the advertisement. This is essential in triggering the purchase intention of the
advertisement viewers, ensuring rational and wise decision making.
This engagement framework for digital signage adopts the multidimensional perspective of
engagement which includes cognitive experience, emotional experience and behavioural
responses.

3.4 Lightweight Smart Screen Architecture for Multichannel Control Advertising

Display:

Media player, digital signage and smart screen display are widely used in the advertising
industry. The traditional ads display suffers from several reasons mainly that the architecture
is hard to scale up; hardware cost is too high, difficulty in customizing the content on each
node, unqualified support live stream, and limitation in closed loop connection. The
commercial advertising display and digital signage is the second generation of the ads display
instead by sending the video signal to each screen and the digital signage can be connected
via the network and access server media resources. With the specific application, it is hard to
customize the layout of the display and the limited availability to change the content and
layout in real-time. The specific hardware for ads display is too expensive due to the research
cost and customization made.
Modern ads display uses the set-top box hardware to reduce the cost of the screen
display by using the LCD or LED television with high resolution and bigger screen size
rather than the specific once. Hardware box can be operated by Android, Linux, or Windows
operating system with a custom application. Limitations of using set-top box is a platform
specific and the challenging is to manage and change the content when the user wants to
change the layout or organize content in real-time. It is difficult to force users to update the
software. A better software model uses a cross-platform web-based architecture that can be
upgraded directly from the server. The next classic issue in ad serving is changing the display
format depending on the installation area and usage pattern.
It can be installed in either horizontal or vertical format. The content of the ad also
affects the design of the content layout and it has a direct impact on the software model and
development techniques. Usability and maintainability are an essential quality consideration
in the case of the multiple ads display with various contents. For traditional architecture, TCP
or UDP protocols are often used by opening specific ports as control channels. With today's
web technology, socket.io can be used to manage the multiple screens simultaneously. It also
allows administrators to control the media and changes all content in real time.
The lightweight protocol also helps administrators not to need to modify the network settings.
As mentioned above, therefore, this paper proposes a novel lightweight architecture for smart
ads display system with the following capabilities:
(1) Low hardware costs
(2) Real-time content management
(3) Support the template and layout with multiple contents type
(4) High flexibility with Plug
and Play concept which is a Cross-platform web-based
technology.

3.4.1 Network Architecture for Light Hardware and Software:

Traditional ads distribution networks are connected by a cable or radio to send video
to the tuner. It is difficult to tailor content to each display due to the need for the specialized
hardware and software. Today's architectures use IP networks and wireless networks to send
video streams, ads, and other media supplemented by content caching on the destination
device. However, the problem is similar to traditional architecture, namely, it is difficult to
refine the layout and organize content in real time. Commercial ads management systems can
provide customized content in a limited format. If a customer wants to change or customize
the layout, they may pay extra or wait to ask the product owner to customize the software.

Fig.10 Smart ads display network architecture

Fig.9 shows the proposed network architecture for the lightweight ads display
solution. The components are described as follow:
• Ads display screen is the big screen LCD or LED display (low cost LED television) with
HDMI port to display high definition (HD) content.
• Group of the smart ads displays it is the group of ads display devices that may be grouped
by location or by context.
• Control and Content server: the web server performed by node.js and express to provide a
web page in HTML5 and customize the layout by using CSS3.
• Internet resource is the free access content on internets such as YouTube VDO, Google
Drive, Google Calendar, and Firebase Cloud Server.
• Wall room control: this can be a PC, laptop, or tablet that connects to all ads set-top-box
devices to control and manage the content simultaneously.
• Rapid control: the mobile or tablet that can access local or nearby ads display to manage or
update content in real-time.
• Media input: a set of devices that can capture picture or video and send to the resource
server or internet resource server. After uploading the content, we can get the URI for each
resource to access from ads display. A. Hardware The goal of this architecture is to develop a
low cost, lightweight solution for a fully integrated ads display system. An Android box or
other box is an option available to use in this architecture. This work also recommends the
use of Raspberry Pi 3 (price is $35) as a set-top-box to turn low-cost TVs into smart TVs that
can access the web from a chrome browser. Fig.9 shows the Raspberry Pi 3 model B that
includes Ethernet port; Wi-Fi enable, HDMI port, and SD Card storage. Other accessories are
the HDMI cable, power adaptor, and Pi case to protect the board.
The software required for displaying ads with Raspberry Pi is shown in Fig.10. From
the referent model, we can connect to the Control and Content server via Wi-Fi or LAN
interface (LAN connection recommended). It should be installed VNC program to control
remote Raspberry Pi devices in case the problems occurred with the system.

3.4.2 Software Architecture for Light Hardware:

The solution for ads displays software architecture is providing based on the following
objectives: Lightweight and Scalable Real-time communication, multiple clients supported,
Easy to develop and maintain, Multiple Layout architecture supported, and cross-platform
supported.
 Fig.11 Software architecture

Fig. 10 illustrates the software architecture proposed for the smart ads display system.
The resource type is parsed into public media, specific client media files and resources to
synchronize the status, and HTML layout templates for HTML insertion by changing the ads
display layout in real-time.

A. Lightweight and Scalable Server

The lightweight server used in this study is Node.js with Express module for creating
Web APIs and REST APIs. One problem with the Node.js server is that the server is not
running as a service on the operating system due to the program is immediately closed after
exit the command line. This work uses PM2 process manager to solve this problem to
manage Node.js applications to run as a service on the operating system. Additionally, PM2
can put the application to run in multiple instances that work in clustered mode, and it also
has load balance features.

B. Real-time Communication and Management

Socket.io is the web-enabled APIs to provide real-time communication between
browser and servers without refresh. This work created an app.js server and ran on Node.js
with enabling the socket.io port to provide the communication channel between ads display
and ads controller.
We demonstrate, in Fig.5, the communication between the control servers along with the
socket.io port. The control client device and multiple ads displays are connected to the
control and content server. The control messages and commands are sent in JSON format
with asynchronous communication.

C. Multiple Clients Support

This architecture allows multiple clients to connect to a Content and Control server.
Each client is registered to the
server and obtained a client-id for self-identification. The
client is divided into three roles:
1) Ads display devices that connect to the control and content server,
2) Wall room monitoring client for an administrator, and
3) Local mobile controller client to connect and control nearby ads display. The group_id is
used to identify groups for sending information to multiple ads display devices.

Fig.11 shows the example of control message structure and JSON message for the
socket.io communication. The first line demonstrates the command that sent to ClientID 101
videos. The second line shows the message command to reload screen for all registered ads
display. The last line presents the update calendar command to the group of ads displays group-
id 1111.

Fig.12 Control message structure

D. Easy to Develop and Maintain
The proposed web-based software architecture is easy to understand because of the
general use of HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript.

E. Multiple Layout supported and cross-platform

Ads display layouts can be provided based on the HTML5 element structure, with
CSS3 and Bootstrap APIs. The layout can be constructed by the element and accessible by id
(#) to set or update content. The layout should be tested on the major browser; Safari,
Chrome, and Edge browser to improve the cross-platform features.

Fig.13 Ads display layout

In Fig. 12, we show the horizontal and vertical screen layout for different ads use
cases. Each layout can be changed in real time by inserting new HTML and loading the
required content immediately.

CHAPTER 4

APPLICATIONS

There are many applications on smart signage and few are listed below:

 Indoor positioning in Super Markets, Railway stations, Colleges and schools.

 The highly efficient targeting of the people to target from the advertisers.
 Low cost manufacturing of the hardware and software for the mass installation.
 Disaster information display to provide proper valid information to evacuate the large
number of people automatically.
 The reduction in the physical resistance of the already available displays that is using
camera to collect the people’s attribute.
 The updating of the signage remotely possible because of the web-technology.
 Theaters, cinemas, entertainment facilities can gain immense benefits by informing
the crowd about the forthcoming events, show schedule, emergency exits or facility
maps, but also of merchandise and goods (like catalogs or DVDs) that may be on sale,
as well as sponsored advertisements.
 In personnel transportation, be they airports, train stations or urban transportations,
digital signage allows travellers to enrich the time spent on-board with realtime
information about the position of the vehicle, delays and possible connections or
simply about next stops and stations, while letting the common carrier broadcast
commercials (targeted based on the day time) on the same frame.
 In companies, it is useful to make employees aware of important notifications and to
share information about achieve employee productivity and commitment.
 Digital signage is an effective communication tool for the public administration that
wishes to improve its relations with citizens, for companies, that aim at strengthening
their brand and enhance communication with employees.
CHAPTER 5

EVALUATION

5.1 The Indoor positioning system:

The indoor positioning market is estimated to grow to $4.4 billion by 2019 (Markets)
with strong demand in healthcare, retail, hospitality, travel and other sectors. Today, more
than 80-90% of people’s time is spent indoors (Strategy Analytics). Combine that with rising
smart phone penetration and changing consumer mobile buyer behaviour, it is no wonder that
start-ups and established organizations are quickly looking for ways to provide location-
based apps to engage their users indoors. This in turn has increased the number of pilots and
deployments of Indoor Positioning Systems (IPS) – the underlying technology that enables
indoor positioning for location-based apps. IPS provide an opportunity for organizations to
engage customers inside large indoor spaces with their brands, their products, their partners
or anything that helps them to further increase customer relationships and sales. IPS locate
people or objects inside a building using radio waves, magnetic fields, acoustic signals, or
other sensory information collected by a smart phone, tablet or other smart devices.
Organizations can use IPS to develop features for their location-based apps and popular
features include;
• Proximity marketing/advertising
• Way-finding/navigation
• Search
• Asset or people tracking

Unlike Global Positioning Systems (GPS), IPS doesn’t rely on existing satellite
signals. It is the responsibility of IT managers, marketing managers, facilities personnel and
other stakeholders to purchase, install and maintain IPS systems. Respondents reported that
thousands of Wi-Fi and beacon devices will be required across their indoor venues to achieve
high levels of positioning accuracy needed for their mobile users – a clear challenge for even
the largest of organizations to overcome.
5.2 The Digital Signage Networks:
A digital signage network (DSN) connecting various displays significantly shortens
the conventional CDI (creation, distribution, installation) cycle of an advertisement.

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When an advertising campaign is designed, it can be directly and quickly transferred to some
or all displays in the network. Compared to conventional signage, several steps, such as
physical sign creation, distribution, and installation have become obsolete in a DSN. On the
one hand, the implementation of digital signage involves relatively high initial investments.
On the other hand, the flexibility in content and the promptness of changing the content
remotely leads to significant cost savings. If a digital sign is located at the POS, for instance
at a supermarket, the retailer’s inventory system may be interconnected with the DSN.
According to the current availability of a product at the respective retailer, a advertisement
may be pushed or paused. This scenario is only one of the vast possibilities for contextual
digital signage. In addition to the information about the inventory status, contextual data is
also important when providing dynamically configurable promotion. If further contextual
cues should be considered for a contextual digital signage system, the respective hardware
and software needs to be interconnected to the DSN. For instance, if an advertisement should
be selected based on the current weather situation, a connection to a service providing this
information must be established. For the specific case of weather information, two solutions
are viable. Access to a Web service providing weather information for a region is one
solution, while weather-eliciting hardware (e.g., thermometer, wind gauge, etc.) can also be
installed on site to provide the required information. If characteristics of an individual nearby
a display should trigger a certain advertisement, additional hardware and software solutions
need to be installed on site. First, technology recognizes the presence of an individual has to
be implemented; second, personal characteristics of the individual have to be captured (e.g., a
camera may take a picture of the individual); and third, the captured information has to be
analysed (e.g., the individual’s hair colour needs to be analysed based on the picture) and
matched against predefined criteria (e.g., display the suitable hair colouring advertisement for
the detected hair colour).
For interactive digital signage, respective hardware has to be installed on site with
every display on the network that should have the specific functionality. Touch is a typical
interaction modality; it certainly requires a display to have touch functionality to enable this
interaction type. Using a consumer’s posture as the trigger for advertisement selection
requires other hardware. Solutions found in literature typically use cameras and/or (Kinect)
depth-cameras for being able to capture posture information. For having consumers interact
with a digital signage system via their personal mobile devices, hardware has to be available
on site (e.g., RFID scanner, Bluetooth).

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Care must be taken to build on technologies that are supported by widely used mobile
devices. For instance, Near-Field Communication (NFC) solutions were implemented in
Europe’s kiosk systems long before Europe’s mobile devices were equipped with such
technology. This situation resulted in a wide-scale non-use of those solutions. In addition,
consumers developed not-so-positive attitudes towards these systems, as they were not able
to use them.
CHAPTER 6

CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK

The proposed system can collect huge data attributes from the people or the users using the
Bluetooth beacons enabling high targeting in the offline advertisements. The low-cost
hardware and software for the signage helps big organizations to install numerous signage
throughout their place and accounting for less maintenance and repair cost.

The Smart signage can involve the IPS [Indoor Positioning System] which will help
people to navigate bigger buildings and places internally and supporting the advertisements
simultaneously. Finally, the interfacing of the sensors with the signage will help the
Hospitals, Schools and Super Markets to display disaster time information.

The future work involves connecting all the signage to a common platform, so the
centralized control is possible. The smart sensors will be interfaced to collect the more depth
information like people's interest enabling next generation targeting in the advertisements.
CHAPTER 7

BIBLIOGRAPHY

[1] “Development of IoT based Smart Signage Platform” by Sunghee Lee, Ilhong Shin,
and Namkyung Lee Media Research Laboratory Electronics and Telecommunications
Research Institute Daejeon, Korea.

[2] “An Engagement Framework for Digital Signage” by Sue Hong Steven Wong, Meng
Chew Leow, Siong Hoe Lau, Faculty of Information Science and Technology Multimedia
University.

[3] “An Indoor Position System based on Dynamic Digital Signage and Mobile Devices”
by Chen-Cong Gan, Yih-Jiun Lee, Kai-Wen Lien , Dept. of Information Communications
Chinese Culture University Taipei, Taiwan.

[4] “Lightweight Smart Screen Architecture for Multichannel Control Advertising

Display” by Vittayasak Rujivorakul, Sujitra Arwatchananukul, Nattapol Aunsri of School of
Information Technology Mae Fah Luang University Chiang Rai, Thailand.

[5] “Low-cost Managed Digital Signage System with Signage Device using Small-sized
and Low-cost Information Device” by Kazuhiro Mishima, Takeshi Sakurada, Yoichi
Hagiwara Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology Koganei, Tokyo.

[6] “Towards Providing Relevant Digital Signage Advertisement to a Group of Users

Based on User Interests Investigation” by Polina Morozova, Nikolay Shilov ,TMO
University, St.Petersburg, Russia.

[7] “Digital Signage Personalization for Smart City: Major Requirements and
Approach” by Nikolay Shilov, Oxana Smirnova, Polina Morozova, Nikolay Turo , Maksim
Shchekotov, Nikolay Teslya SPIIRAS, St.Petersburg, Russia,ITMO University,
St.Petersburg, Russia.

[8] “Implementation of Digital Signage Based on Embedded System and IoT Using Mac
Address as an Identifier on Laboratory In-Out Announcer Board” by Heruwanto,
Wayan Mustika, Selo of Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology
Engineering Faculty, UGM Yogyakarta, Indonesia.
[9] “Design and Implementation of Smart Advertisement Display Board Prototype” by
Fauzi Murtadho, Dodi Wisaksono Sudiharto, Catur Wirawan Wijiutomo, Endro Ariyanto
School of Computing Telkom University Bandung, Indonesia.