Tracking in the Deutsche Museum Nürnberg

Abstract

The new branch of the Deutsches Museum in Nuremberg, the Museum of the Future, is dedicated to raising awareness of this and many other topics related to digitization. Its aim is to communicate new technologies, their functions, the technical foundations and their effects on society and the lives of individuals. On the one hand, this is done through classical exhibitions with sometimes spectacular exhibits and experiments, accompanied by high-quality (laboratory) programs. On the other hand, this is implemented indirectly on different levels of mediation and within the framework of new formats by making possible future technologies “experienceable”.

On the one hand, the FAU team will develop a camera system that anonymously records visitor numbers and streams, as well as personal data about those people who have consented to the temporary use of their data. On the other hand, the researchers are working on algorithms for data evaluation and interpretation that can be used to create a comprehensive user profile – from walking routes through the exhibition to measuring emotions and group dynamics.

Development of a GDPR compliant Tracking System

The project considers two main aspects. For one the development of a GDPR compliant tracking solution of visitors in the context of a museums visit. Beside tracking the 2D position on a floorplan, also personal parameters like height, weight, etc. shall be estimated and aggregated in a GDPR compliant way. Especially, emotions are of interest, because the goal is to estimate, how well a museum piece received, and why that is the case.

A exceptional challenging part is the GDPR compliancy. To this end, as the person confirms to take part in the data sharing, several pictures of a person are taken and used for later reidentifcation to keep collected data respectively. To this end a new method for real-time person reidentifcation has to be developed.

Visitor analysis in the Deutsche Museum Nürnberg

The second aspect of this project covers the collection and analysis of the data. To this end, the developed system is deployed in the museum and used for data collection purposes. To ensure correct function, a study in a closed setting is performed. Especially, exploration of the data and correlation of individual parameters are of interest. Is there a correlation between a persons age and their field of interest?  e.g. does 20 year old man – in general – prefer technology related to space? To this end a long-term data collection – under strict GDPR compliancy – is performed and used as a base for analysis.