1.2 Research Objectives
Therefore, we are working on the construction of a
platform that recognizes and stores all kinds of
information that exists in the real world and shares it
with others. We believe our system can make life
more safe and convenient. We had evaluated a
prototype system in which edge devices evaluate and
share the safety of a location so that others can
recognize safe areas, and the system displays safe
routes in AR on HMDs and other devices to enable
safe travel (Hara and Saito, 2023.).
Then, we are developing a system that detects
"objects" and "events" in the real world using edge
devices that can share the detected information
among them in the cyberspace so that the users can
remotely obtain real world information from distant
locations. We aim for the system can be the
foundation for creating Society 5.0, the digital twin of
the real world, as proposed by the Japanese Cabinet
Office (Cabinet Office of Japan, 2022) Sharing
information on objects and events in the real world
can contribute to solving various social problems,
such as urban planning to prevent crimes, support
services to maintain social distance in infectious
disease environments such as COVID-19, detecting
people in trouble and automatically asking for help
from people around them, support services to protect
wild animals, and services to find lost dogs.
In this paper, we report on the findings and
problems encountered in developing the prototype
system that detects "objects" and "events" in the real
world using edge devices that can share the detected
information among them in cyberspace.
2 RELATED WORKS
Methods for detecting and sharing information about
"objects" and "events" that exist in the real world have
been widely proposed, and some of them are already
available as services.
2.1 Detection of "Objects" and
"Events" in the Real World
Many machine-learning-based object detection
methods have been proposed for detecting "objects"
in the real world. A representative algorithm is the
real-time object detection algorithm YOLO (Redmon
et al, 2016). It has already been used in services such
as analysis of customers visiting a store and traffic
volume surveys. Environmental sound recognition is
also important for detecting "events" occurring in the
real world. Environmental sound recognition is a
technique for detecting and recognizing a wide
variety of sounds that occur in our surroundings, such
as human speech, dog barking, and alarm sounds, and
many methods have been proposed (Karol,
2015)(Tokozume and Harada, 2017)(Qiuqiang et al,
2020). By analyzing environmental sounds, it is
possible to detect events occurring in the real world.
Many methods have also been proposed to detect
"events" occurring in the real world by analyzing
social networking posts (Ling and Abhishek,
2009)(Ryong and Kazutoshi, 2010)(Sakaki et al,
2010). These methods extract information about
events such as artists' live performances, earthquakes,
and traffic jams, as well as the locations where these
events occurred. Walther et al. proposed a method to
detect event information by detecting a spike in the
number of posts with location information by region
(Walther and Kaisser, 2013). Kim et al. propose a
method to analyze real-time geotagged posts on social
media and estimate the level of danger in an area in
real time (Kim et al, 2014).
2.2 Sharing of "Objects" and "Events"
in the Real World
As a mechanism for sharing detected “events” and
"events", Mobileye's Road Experience Management
(REM), a system that automatically creates maps for
automated driving, can be used as a reference
(Mobileye, 2023). REM automatically collects road
data with sensors (cameras, LiDAR, GNSS, etc.)
mounted on vehicles and uploads it to a cloud server,
where the system identifies and removes moving
objects such as vehicles, people, and bicycles to
automatically create/update maps for automated
driving. The smartphone application "FixMyStreet
Japan" is a service for sharing local problems such as
damaged roads, graffiti, broken streetlights, illegal
dumping, etc. Users take pictures using their
smartphones and share them, and the administration
responds (FixMyStreet Japan, 2023). The "Yahoo!
Weather Forecast" aggregates the weather
information posted by users and displays it as the
current weather(Yahoo Weather Forecast, 2023). The
disaster map of the "Yahoo! Disaster Prevention
App" allows users to post and share information about
each other's situation in the event of a disaster (Yahoo
Disaster Prevention, 2023). In smartphones, functions
for sharing users' location information are
implemented at the OS level and also provided as a
service through applications. Apple's iOS has a
function for sharing users' location information,