Business Areas
Fraunhofer FIRST / Institute
Embedded search technology for navigation and infotainment systems
© Nanett Bier/ Fraunhofer FIRST
With FlashFind Fraunhofer FIRST is providing a search technology for customers such as manufacturers of infotainment devices or navigation systems optimized for mobile and embedded devices without the need of a network connection.
Using innovative algorithms and careful optimization FlashFind is facilitating a quick search in large databases like on-board navigation maps. FlashFind provides a comfortable space-related instant full-text search, which means that the results are already being displayed while the user is typing his or her request. The request can consist of one or more words. A special search button is not necessary. Other use cases common in navigation like hierarchical destination selection or search-along-route are covered by the technology as well.
The instant search doesn’t require a network connection, yet it provides web-equivalent comfort in the offline modus. For connected navigation devices (connected navigation) the FlashFind technology ensures that the results are displayed instantly irrespective of dead spots or network overload. Is a stable network connection available (again) results from the web can be integrated.
FlashFind was developed by researchers at Fraunhofer FIRST within the scope of the Future Mobile Navigation Toolkit, but it can also be used separately and be integrated in existing systems (and their onboard databases). The FlashFind software can be licensed. All rights to the patent-pending technology are owned by the Fraunhofer Gesellschaft.
A prototype demonstrates ”type-until-found” search in a map of Western Europe including 25 countries with 13 millions entries (roads, cities, points of interests) on a smartphone without network access.
New features:
- Fuzzy/ phonetic search: A considerable range of misspellings is now tolerated, without substantial additional index footprint. Nevertheless, with short search patterns like LEE RD the intended target is still retrieved.
- Auto-completion: FlashFind proposes a (in the context reasonable) completion for the last partially-typed word after a few letters.
- Single-shot entry: The order of entering search words is not fixed. The user can for example start with the street and then type the city or the other way around.
- Non-prefix abbreviations like RD, LN, BLVD are accepted, too.
- Integration with an embedded voice recognition engine.