A Novel Movement Model for Pedestrians Suitable for Personal Navigation

Abstract

In this paper a combination of two movement models, operating at the microscopic level and suitable for pedestrian navigation is developed and tested. The constituents are a Stochastic Behavioral Movement Model to characterize more random motion and a Diffusion Movement Model to characterize a geographic goal a pedestrian might walk towards. A top-level Markov process is used to determine whether to currently use the stochastic behavioral or the diffusion model; therefore, the model switches between motion that is more goal oriented (diffusion model) or stochastic. Advantages and disadvantages of both individual constituent models are demonstrated and discussed. The combined movement model is demonstrated to achieve the best of both worlds and to avoid the problems associated with using a single model. The properties and the performance of the resulting model will be explained in details.