LPU students invent ‘Seat Locator System for theatres & auditoriums’
New Delhi: Gurjot Singh Gaba, a professor at Lovely Professional University, along with his students have built a novel seat locator system to help navigate audiences toward their respective seats at a movie theatre or an auditorium.
The system works with the help of a barcode/QR code printed on each ticket of the show. The theatres also must install LED strips or any other illuminating source on the floor for this to function. Once the barcode is accessed/punched-in at the entrance of the theatre, a specific colour in accordance of the ticket will be lit on the LED strip affixed on the floor from the point of entry till their seat. The light automatically turns off once the seat is occupied ensuring minimum distraction to the seated audience. Similarly, if a second or a third person walks the same path at the same time with a different ticket, a different colour will be allocated to them and the path will be lit with their respective colour till they reach their seat.
The system also assists in-theatre food delivery persons to locate the concerned person’s seat with use of the same barcode and QR code. In addition, in case of an emergency, the manager of the theatre can navigate medical practitioners or police personnel to the required destination by luminating the right path.
Gurjot Singh Gaba, Assistant Professor at LPU, Mentor and Team Lead of the project said, “We noticed that many people find it challenging to navigate their seats at movie theatres and auditoriums, especially elders, first time visitors and those with an eye defect. This becomes especially problematic in the case of late comers who spoil the experience for others by roaming around in the middle of a playing movie, trying to locate their seats. This led us to envision an intelligent system that will use bar codes or QR codes and LED lights on the floor to help navigate people to their respective seats conveniently and through the shortest and least distracted path. We are planning to take our system to commercial theatres soon and are confident that they will find it useful.”
Students Nichenametla Sai Krishnaa, Satyam Abhijeet Verma, Khushal Kumar Jain and Parag Badala assisted in the project and it took around 1 year to complete the same. The research team has applied for a patent which is expected to be granted soon.