AbstractWith the improvement of living standards,

shopping malls are bigger after constructing with more

abundantgoodsandmorevarietyofwares.Therefore,building
a simple, fast and convenient shopping guide system has
becomeamutualconcernofmerchantsandcustomers.Inview
ofthemobilephonehasbecomeapopularconsumerproducts,
a simple optimization method was given to design shopping
guidesystem runon smart phones, with the help of QR code
generationandrecognitiontechnology.Theproposedprograms
can show accurate and realtime shopping destination, thus
helpshoppingmalltominecustomerdatamoreaccuratelyand
scientifically.
I. INTRODUCTION
ith the improvement of living standards, most big
shopping malls experienced reconstruction and scale
expansion. Currently, shoppingmalls are bigger with more
abundantgoodsandmorevarietyofwares.Peopleareinthe
pursuitofhighqualityconsumergoods.Atthesametime,the
pursuit ofefficientshopping isgradually revealed.To solve
the difficulty in customer shopping, large stores have
launched a mall layout map, Touch Mall shopping system,
and other shopping guide newsletter. In recent years,
shoppingguidehasbecomeahotcareer.
Shoppingguide mall layout map is most common in the
mall as a shopping guide, which shows the customers
position and thelayoutof mall section directly. However,it
maybelittlehelpforthosefirsttimecustomersorcustomers
withbadsenseofdirection.
Touchmallshoppingguidesystem istheelectronicversion
ofshoppingguide and malllayoutmap.Thissystemisrarein
domestic malls with high maintaining cost, thus is not
suitable for small and medium sized shopping centers.
Express Shopping newsletter notifies the customers with
recentpromotions, andcan provideconveniencefor shopping.
Yet the newsletter imposes threat to resource and
environment,foritscolorinkprintingpaper.
Ontheotherhand,therisinglivingstandardsis reflected
inthemobilephonepopularization.Thephoneisupgrading
with eachpassing day,andnow the Internet access, picture
takinghasbecome thebasicfunctionof amobilephone.GPS
(Global Positioning System) function is implanted in smart
phone, and the builtin electronic map can help its holder
acquirethesurroundinginformationandmakeachoice.
Accordingtothe thestatisticaldataof MinistryofIndustry,
Chinesemobilephoneholdershasreachedupto859million
ManuscriptreceivedFebruary 23,2011.
Lei Fu is with the Department of Computer Engineering, Guangdong
IndustryTechnicalCollege, Guangzhou,510300.
Email: webpowers@163.com
bytheendof2010,withabout64.4perhundred.Thehighest
mobilephonepopularizationrateisin Shanghaiwith 122.9
per hundred, followed by Beijing with 121.4 per hundred,
andGuangdong with 99.9 per hundred
[1]
. Data released by
AnalysysThinkTankshowsthat, by theendof2010,China's
mobile Internet users reached 288 million with a chain
relativegrowthof18.52%,themarketturnoverreached63.7
billionyuanwith 64.2%increasethanthesameperiodoflast
year. Excluding information flow charges, mobile Internet
servicerevenuereached 34.2 billionYuan. Wireless music,
mobile games, mobile entertainments and reading has
become the major applications. Significant increase is in
mobilephoneshopping
[2]
.
With the everchanging mobile phone functions, the
productioncostofsmartphonesiscontinuouslyreduced.For
commonusers,theinnovativeshoppingguideservice willbe
very popular if the cost is lowered enough. This paper
presents a proposal of shopping guide service using smart
phone as the carrier. The system will identify the QR code
through the mobile phone cameras, and then give out the
shopping recommendation through comprehensive
evaluation of mall location, sales promotion, customer
buying behavior analysis, with the help of browsing WAP
pagesthrough GPRSor3Gweb.
Fig11Lateststatisticsofglobalshareofsmartphones
(FromNetApplications)
II. MARKETDEMANDANDANALYSIS
Literally, shopping guide hopes to guide the customer
shopping process. Customers entering the store often be
confused by the complicated layout and wide varieties of
goods, which impede the implementation of purchasing
behavior.Shoppingguideisto removethe various concerns
of the customer, and help the customers purchase desired
goods.Shoppingguideisan importantlinktocompletethe
whole sales working, to achieve the exchange process
between commodity and currency. It is a difficult task to
persuade customers taking money from his pocket to
purchase yourcommodity. To complete this task, shopping
malls launched promotions regularly, and notify potential
customers in advance through printed flyers or SMS
notificationstoenhancecustomersdesire
[3]
.
DesignofQRCodebasedMallShopping GuideSystem
LeiFu
W
International Conference on Information Science and Technology
March 26-28, 2011 Nanjing, Jiangsu, China
978-1-4244-9442-2/11/$26.00 2011 IEEE 450
Lowcarbonlivingisaleadingfashiontoday,yetthemall
ads paper is a waste of resources and pollution of the
environment. On the one side is the fierce competition
between shopping malls, and the other is the threat to
resources and environment. How to solve this dilemma?
Maybe the shopping guide can act as a solution. Product
promotions and discount is the most important information
desiredbycustomers.Ifthecustomerisabletogetthelatest
product promotions and discount information, as well as a
shortest path from his location to the destination, the
shoppingcanthenbeviewedasapleasantprocess.
Toqueryinformationandroute,themostobvioussolution
is to use GPS. The Global Positioning System (GPS) is a
spacebased global navigation satellite system (GNSS) that
providesreliablelocationandtimeinformationinallweather
andatalltimesandanywhereonorneartheEarthwhenthere
is an unobstructed line of sight to four or more GPS
satellites
[4]
.
Fig21CalculationformulaofGPSlocationpositioning
Insummary,GPSlocationbasedservicesarefantastic.But
the GPS positioning precision is measured by number of
satellite, and the GPS calculats the position from the three
worldstheory.GPSsatellitesare vulnerable tothe effectsof
weather and terrain. On overcast or even rainy days, or in
locations with huge buildings, GPS positioning effect is
greatlyreduced,positioningerrorsmayoccur.
Mallisaspecialenvironment.If youwantto achievethe
information query and route finding at the mall, through
GPSlocationbased servicewithout additional equipment is
basicallyimpossible.Soarethere any other waystoachieve
the above services? we propose QR codes to solve this
problem.
A QR Code is a specific matrix barcode (or two
dimensionalcode),readablebydedicatedQRbarcodereaders
and camera phones. The code consists of black modules
arranged in a square pattern on a white background. The
information encoded can be text, URL or other data.
CommoninJapan,whereitwascreatedbyToyotasubsidiary
DensoWavein1994,theQRcodeisoneofthemostpopular
typesoftwodimensionalbarcodes.QRistheabbreviationfor
QuickResponse,asthecreatorintendedtoallowitscontents
to be decoded at high speed
[5]
. We can store specific
informationintotheQRCode.Identifiedthroughthephone's
camera, the image information will be converted into data
through GPRS or 3G after uploading to the server for
comparison. It can also be done directly on their mobile
phones, so you can not add any additional investment to
acquiretheinformationofshoppingpromotionsandlocation
services.
Fig22ExampleofQRcodesymbol
III. SYSTEMDESIGNAND IMPLEMENTATION
A. Design
Inshoppingmalls,wewillcreatuniqueQRcodestorecord
thearticlename,number,latitudeandlongitude locationof
goodsplaced,andsoon.Wewilldigitize the mapofshopping
mall or a counter, then store them into the phone. Phone
recognizes the QR Code through the camera. After being
recognizedandconverted,thecodewillbecomparedwiththe
dataof electronic maps. Thenitwillidentifythe customer's
current regions, provide different services according to
customer'schoice.Letcustomerreceivethelatestpromotions
ofbusinesses,findthebestroutefromhiscurrentlocationto
the destination. System will automatically upload the QR
Codesinformation,whichisrecognized bycustomer, tothe
WebserverrecordsviaGPRSor3Gnetworks,providingdata
supportforotherservicesinthefuture.
Fig31Schematicdiagramofamallshoppingguide
The proposedsystemiscomposedoftwoparts,namelythe
mobilefrontendapplicationandwebsitebackgroundservices
program. Both of the two pieces is independent and
interdependent.Mobilefrontendapplicationsisa core part
of the system, for QR Code recognition and information
displays. Website background services program is the data
platforms of a system, informing customers the latest
promotionsofshoppingmallviaSMStextmessagingservice
orWAPbrowsingservices.Thefrontendapplication ofthe
mobile is designed and developed using Adobe Flash, and
website background service program is designed by use of
PHPWebprogramminglanguage.
Mobile App is a customer service platform. Users can
downloadthe programtothe Smart phone, and install it. It
willbe usedonlyafter successful installation. For shopping
users, you can start the programm at the counter with QR
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codelabelled merchandise.Withyourphonecamerafocuson
theQRsymbol, the systemwillautomatically recognizethe
dataintheQRcode.
Website background services are data centers. Users can
browse data byfrontendsoftwareinstalled onthephone.This
datacenterwillstoresubmitteddataandthedatainQRcodes
foridentificationbythephonesoftware.
1Thedevelopmentenvironment
AdobeFlash(formerlyMacromediaFlash)isamultimedia
platform used to add animation, video, and interactivity to
web pages. Flash is frequently used for advertisements and
games. More recently, it has been positioned as a tool for
"RichInternetApplications"("RIAs").
ActionScript is an objectoriented language originally
developed by Macromedia Inc. (now owned by Adobe
Systems).ItisadialectofECMAScript (meaningithasthe
same syntax and semantics of the more widely known
JavaScript), and is used primarily for the development of
websites and software targeting the Adobe Flash Player
platform, run onWeb pages in the form of embedded SWF
files. The language itself is opensource in that its
specificationisofferedfree ofchargeandbothanopensource
compiler (as part of Adobe Flex) and open source virtual
machine(MozillaTamarin)areavailable
[6]
.
2Applicationplatform
Mostsmartphonescan supportFlash Lite4(FlashPlayer
forsmart phones),andsomecanevenrunFlashPlayer10(e.g.
Android).Duetothecrossplatformfeature of AdobeFlash, it
canbemoreeasily toimplantfromPCtothephone.
3QRCode
QRcodedatacapacity
Numericcodeonly Max.7,089characters
Alphanumeric Max.4,296characters
Binary(8bits) Max.2,953bytes
Kanji/Kana Max.1,817characters
Errorcorrectioncapacity
LevelL 7%ofcodewordscanberestored.
LevelM 15%ofcodewordscanberestored.
LevelQ 25%ofcodewordscanberestored.
LevelH 30%ofcodewordscanberestored.
QRcodesusetheReedSolomonerrorcorrection
[5]
.
EachQRcodesymbolisconstituted by nominally square
modules,toformasquarearray,whichconsistsofencoding
regions and functioning regions, including target search,
separator, image and graphics features, positioning and
correction of graphics. Functioning regions cannot be used
for data encoding. The symbols are surrounded by blank
spacearound,asshowninfollowedfigure.
Fig32StructureofQRcodesymbol
QRcode symbolhasa totalof 40 kinds of specifications,
namelyversion1,version2,untilversion40.Specifications
of version1is2121,andversion2is2525,andsoon.Each
version increases with 4 modules on each side than the
previous version, up to version 40, specifications of
177177
[5]
.
B. Implementation
Thissystemhastwoimportantsteps,QRcodegeneration
andrecognition.
1GenerationofQRcodes
QR codes used to identify the goods are generated
accordingtospecificprotocols,thusitsnecessarytodesign
andproduceaQR codesymbolgenerator. Thissystem uses
ActionScript3 open source QR code symbol generation
algorithm
[7]
todesigntheQRcodesymbols generator based
on Adobe Flash, which can generate QR code symbol in
accordance with the QRcode recognition protocol. The
symbolwillthenbeusedtorepresentthetagofshelfgoods.
Fig33InterfaceofQRcodesymbolgenerator
2RecognitionofQRcode
This system uses ActionScript3 open source QR code
symbol recognition algorithm
[7]
, which is the reverse of
algorithmgeneratedbyQRcodesymbol.Wedesignthe QR
code symbol recognition through this algorithm by using
Adobe Flash. For the QR code symbols are used to expand
theirstoragecontents,itiseasytoidentify aslongastheQR
codesymbolisstandard.
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Fig33InterfaceofQRcodesymbolrecognizer
IV. CONCLUSIONS
This article presented a mall shopping guiding solution.
Thedifferencefromothershoppingguideisthatitachieveda
regional positioning and shopping guide by using QR code
symbol recognition run on a common smart mobile phone.
Usingoursystem,one canobtaininformationofthelocation
andthesurroundings of ashoppingmall.Thesystemcanalso
help shopping mall to mine customer data more accurately
andscientifically.
This system is still at an experimental stage, high CPU
utilization of QR code symbol identifying needs to be
improved. Different from PC application, CPU utilization
rate will directly affects the durability of mobile phone
batteries.
REFERENCES
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[3] CuiPing.Marketingscience.MachineryIndustryPress,2005.
[4] LiTianwen.PrinciplesandapplicationsofGPS.SciencePress,2007
[5] FoodinChina.NationalstandardsofQRcodesymbol.ChinaNetwork,
2010 .
[6] LiLuo,FuLei.Application andpracticeofFlash.ChinaWaterPower
Press,2008
[7] KentaroFukuchi.QRencodeDocumentation. http://fukuchi.org/,2006.
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