GPS for the visually impaired
Encyclopedia
There have been many attempts to integrate Global Positioning System
into a navigation-assistance system for the blind
. GPS was introduced in the late 1980s and since then there have been several research projects to increase it's usefulness for the visually impaired.
Satellite navigation complements existing aids, such as the white cane
or guide dog
, but does not replace them.
software for satellite navigation
for blind and visually impaired users. The software is free and runs currently on many different Nokia
devices with the S60 platform
under all versions of the Symbian
operating system. A GPS receiver
must be connected to the cell phone by Bluetooth
.
Many blind people around the world are using Nokia cell phones because there are two screen reader
products for the S60 Symbian platform; Talks from Nuance Communications
and Mobile Speak
from the Spanish company Code Factory. This makes these devices accessible by output of synthetic speech
and also allow the use of third party software, such as Loadstone GPS.
The Loadstone developers, who are blind, are from Vancouver, Glasgow, and Amsterdam. Many users from around the world have contributed improvement proposals as they know exactly what functionality helps to increase their pedestrian mobility.
In 2004 the project was started by Monty Lilburn and Shawn Kirkpatrick. After the first development successes, they made it public in May 2006. Since then, other volunteers have found their way to this project of global selfhelp.
The program is under the GNU General Public License
(GPL), and was financed entirely by the private developers and by donations of users.
This product provides blind people with more independence from the trading policy and prices of the few global vendors of accessible satellite navigation solutions.
In large rural regions and developing, or newly industrializing, countries nearly no exact map data is available in common map databases. As such, the Loadstone software provides users an option to create and store their own
waypoints for navigation
and share it with others. The Loadstone community is working on importing coordinates from free sources, such as the OpenStreetMap
project.
In addition they are searching for a sponsor of licenses for commercial map data, such as is offered by the company Tele Atlas
. The other major supplier is Navteq
, which belongs to Nokia.
Loadstone is the name of a natural magnetic iron that was used throughout history in the manufacturing of compasses.
Sighted owners of S60 devices can use Loadstone for leisure-time activities geocaching
.
from Code Factory or TALKS from Nuance Communications and offers text-to-speech technology. It is able to take the special needs of the blind and visually impaired into consideration. Symbian screen reader software offers more than just the reading of the application’s screens, but also provides Braille support.
Highlights of Wayfinder Access include, but are not limited to:
) application operating on a Pocket PC
, adapted for the blind and visually impaired with talking menus, talking maps, and GPS information. Fully portable
(weight 600g), it offered features enabling a blind person to determine position, create routes and receive information on navigating to a destination. It also provided search functions for an exhaustive database
of point of interests, such as restaurants, hotels, etc.
It is fully upgradeable, so it can expand to accommodate new hardware
platform
s and more detailed geographic information.
Trekker and Maestro, which is the first off-the-shelf accessible PDA
based on Windows Mobile Pocket PC, are integrated and available since May 2005.
is developed by Sendero Group, LLC, and Pulse Data International, now called HumanWare, in 2002. It is like a combination of a personal digital assistant, Map-quest software and a mechanical voice.
With a receiver about the size of a small cell phone, the BrailleNote GPS utilizes the GPS network to pinpoint a traveler’s position on earth and nearby points of interest. The personal computers receive radio signals from satellites to chart the location of users and direct them to their destination with recorded voice commands. The system uses satellites to triangulate the carrier’s position, much like a ship finding its location at sea.
Visually impaired people can encode
points of interest such as local restaurants or any other location, into the computer’s database. Afterward, they can punch keys on the unit’s keyboard to direct themselves to a specific point of interest.
for Pocket PCs and Mobile Speak
for Windows Mobile Smartphones .
With Mobile Geo, you can pinpoint your location, learn about the points of interest (POIs) in your immediate vicinity, plan a route between specified points of origin and destination, and get instructions on maneuvers to make as well as information about waypoints along a route that you are following. However, Mobile Geo by no means replaces a cane or dog guide, and use of this product when traveling independently is recommended only when the blind user has received training in the skills of orientation and mobility.
The following is a list of what makes Mobile Geo a unique GPS product for the blind, eclipsing similar solutions currently available. Please note that most of these features will be present in the first version, while a few will be released in future updates of the product:
sensors, information is relayed to a centralized fleet management server via a cellular modem. Blind people, using common text-to-speech enabled cell phones can query estimated time of arrival, locality, and current bus capacity using a web browser
.
Trinetra, spearheaded by Professor Priya Narasimhan, is an ongoing project at the Electrical and Computer Engineering department of Carnegie Mellon University
. Additional research topics include item-level UPC
and RFID identification while grocery shopping and indoor navigation in retail settings.
. It was developing a route planning system which is designed to allow a blind person access to information from many sources such as bus and train timetables as well as electronic maps of the locality. The planning system helps blind people to study and plan their routes in advance, indoors.
With the addition of devices to give the precise current position and orientation of the blind pedestrian, the system could then be used outdoors. The outdoor positioning system is based on signals and satellite
s which give the longitude
and latitude
to within a metre; the computer converts this data to a position on an electronic map of locality. The output from the system is in the form of spoken messages.
(GIS) and GPS.
It augments contextual information to the visually impaired and computed optimized routes based on user preference, temporal constraints (e.g. traffic congestion), and dynamic obstacles (e.g. ongoing ground work, road blockade for special events).
The system constantly guides the blind user to navigate based on static and dynamic data. Environmental conditions and landmark information queries from a spatial database
along their route are provided on the fly through detailed explanatory voice cues. The system also provides capability for the user to add intelligence, as perceived by the blind user, to the central server hosting the spatial database
.
(1937-2009), Professor of Geography at UCSB, and Roberta Klatzky
, Professor of Psychology (now at Carnegie Mellon University). Their combination of development and applied research was supported by three multi-year grants from the National Eye Institute (NEI) and another multi-year consortium grant from the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR), headed by Michael May of Sendero Group. In 1993, the UCSB group first publicly demonstrated the Personal Guidance System (PGS) using a bulky prototype carried in a backpack. Since then, they created several versions of the PGS, one of which was carried in a small pack worn at the waist. Their project mostly focused on the user interface and the resulting research has defined the legacy of the project. As indicated earlier in this entry, several wearable systems are now commercially available. These systems provide verbal guidance and environmental information via speech and Braille displays. But just as drivers and pilots want pictorial information from their navigation systems, survey research by the UCSB group has shown that visually impaired people often want direct perceptual information about the environment. Most of their R&D has dealt with several types of “spatial display”, with researchers Jim Marston and Nicholas Giudice contributing to the recent efforts. The first is a virtual acoustic display, which provides auditory information to the user via earphones (as proposed in the 1985 concept paper). With this display, the user hears important environmental locations, such as turn points along the route and points of interest. The labels of these locations are converted to synthetic speech and then displayed using auditory direction and distance cues, such that the spoken labels appear in the auditory space of the user. A second type of display, which the group calls a “haptic pointer interface”, was inspired by the hand-held receiver used in the Talking Signs© system of remote signage. The user holds a small wand, to which are attached an electronic compass and a small loudspeaker or vibrator. When the hand is pointing toward some location represented in the computer database, the user hears a tone or feels a vibration. Supplementary verbal information can be provided by synthetic speech. The user moves toward the desired location by aligning the body with the hand while maintaining the "on-course" auditory or vibratory signal. Other variants of the pointer interface involve putting the compass on the body or head and turning the body or head until the on-course signal is perceived. Six published route-guidance studies indicate that spatial displays provide effective route guidance, entail less cognitive load than speech interfaces, and are generally preferred by visually impaired users.
. He and his research team are pursuing research on navigation
system for blind and visually impaired people. The system is based on the integration of state of the art current technologies, including high-accuracy GPS positioning, GIS, electronic compass and wireless
digital
video transmission
(remote vision) facility with an accuracy of 3~4m.
It provides an automated guidance using the information from daily updated digital map datasets e.g. roadworks. If required the remote guidance of visually impaired pedestrians by a sighted human guide using the information from the digital map and from the remote video image provides flexibility.
The difficulties encountered includes the availability of up to date information
and what information to offer including the navigation protocol
.
Levels of functionality have been created to tailor
the information to the user’s requirements.
passenger and route information using GPS technology for the visually impaired. This was a three-year (2002~2004) project in VTT Industrial Systems in Finland. The system provides an unbroken trip chain for a pedestrian using buses, commuter trains and trams in three neighbor cities’ area.
It is based on an information server concept, which has user-centered and task oriented approach for solving information needs of special needs groups.
In the system, the Information Server
is an interpreter
between the user and Internet
information systems. It collects, filters and integrates information from different sources and delivers results to the user.
The server handles speech recognition and functions requiring either heavy calculations or data transfer. The data transfer between the server and the client is minimized. The user terminal holds speech synthesis
and most of route guidance.
NOPPA is currently able to offer basic route planning and navigation services in Finland.
In practice, the limits are map data can have outdated information or inaccuracies, positioning can be unavailable or inaccurate, or wireless data transmission is not always available.
Achieving autonomous navigation will be pursued indoor and outdoor, in known and unknown environments. The project consortium is composed by two research centers in computer sciences specialized in human-machine interaction (IRIT) for handicapped people and in auditory perception, spatial cognition, sound design and augmented reality (LIMSI). Another research center is specialized in human and computer vision (CERCO), and two industrial partners are active in artificial vision (Spikenet Technology) and in pedestrian geolocalisation (Navocap). The last member of the consortium is an educational research center for the visually impaired (CESDV – IJA, Institute of Blind Youth).
Global Positioning System
The Global Positioning System is a space-based global navigation satellite system that provides location and time information in all weather, anywhere on or near the Earth, where there is an unobstructed line of sight to four or more GPS satellites...
into a navigation-assistance system for the blind
Blindness
Blindness is the condition of lacking visual perception due to physiological or neurological factors.Various scales have been developed to describe the extent of vision loss and define blindness...
. GPS was introduced in the late 1980s and since then there have been several research projects to increase it's usefulness for the visually impaired.
Satellite navigation complements existing aids, such as the white cane
White cane
A white cane is used by many people who are blind or visually impaired, both as a mobility tool and as a courtesy to others. Not all modern white canes are designed to fulfill the same primary function, however: There are at least five varieties of this tool, each serving a slightly different...
or guide dog
Guide dog
Guide dogs are assistance dogs trained to lead blind and visually impaired people around obstacles.Although the dogs can be trained to navigate various obstacles, they are partially color blind and are not capable of interpreting street signs...
, but does not replace them.
Loadstone GPS
The Loadstone project is developing an open sourceOpen source
The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...
software for satellite navigation
Global Navigation Satellite System
A satellite navigation or SAT NAV system is a system of satellites that provide autonomous geo-spatial positioning with global coverage. It allows small electronic receivers to determine their location to within a few metres using time signals transmitted along a line-of-sight by radio from...
for blind and visually impaired users. The software is free and runs currently on many different Nokia
Nokia
Nokia Corporation is a Finnish multinational communications corporation that is headquartered in Keilaniemi, Espoo, a city neighbouring Finland's capital Helsinki...
devices with the S60 platform
S60 platform
The S60 Platform is a software platform for mobile phones that runs on Symbian OS. It was created by Nokia, who made the platform open source and contributed it to the Symbian Foundation. S60 has been used by mobile device manufacturers including Siemens mobile, Lenovo, LG Electronics, Panasonic...
under all versions of the Symbian
Symbian
Symbian is a mobile operating system and computing platform designed for smartphones and currently maintained by Accenture. The Symbian platform is the successor to Symbian OS and Nokia Series 60; unlike Symbian OS, which needed an additional user interface system, Symbian includes a user...
operating system. A GPS receiver
Global Positioning System
The Global Positioning System is a space-based global navigation satellite system that provides location and time information in all weather, anywhere on or near the Earth, where there is an unobstructed line of sight to four or more GPS satellites...
must be connected to the cell phone by Bluetooth
Bluetooth
Bluetooth is a proprietary open wireless technology standard for exchanging data over short distances from fixed and mobile devices, creating personal area networks with high levels of security...
.
Many blind people around the world are using Nokia cell phones because there are two screen reader
Screen reader
A screen reader is a software application that attempts to identify and interpret what is being displayed on the screen . This interpretation is then re-presented to the user with text-to-speech, sound icons, or a Braille output device...
products for the S60 Symbian platform; Talks from Nuance Communications
Nuance Communications
Nuance Communications is a multinational computer software technology corporation, headquartered in Burlington, Massachusetts, USA, that provides speech and imaging applications...
and Mobile Speak
Mobile Speak
Mobile Speak software are full-fledged screen readers and Braille interfaces that let the blind and visually impaired access their mobile phone.-General description:...
from the Spanish company Code Factory. This makes these devices accessible by output of synthetic speech
Speech synthesis
Speech synthesis is the artificial production of human speech. A computer system used for this purpose is called a speech synthesizer, and can be implemented in software or hardware...
and also allow the use of third party software, such as Loadstone GPS.
The Loadstone developers, who are blind, are from Vancouver, Glasgow, and Amsterdam. Many users from around the world have contributed improvement proposals as they know exactly what functionality helps to increase their pedestrian mobility.
In 2004 the project was started by Monty Lilburn and Shawn Kirkpatrick. After the first development successes, they made it public in May 2006. Since then, other volunteers have found their way to this project of global selfhelp.
The program is under the GNU General Public License
(GPL), and was financed entirely by the private developers and by donations of users.
This product provides blind people with more independence from the trading policy and prices of the few global vendors of accessible satellite navigation solutions.
In large rural regions and developing, or newly industrializing, countries nearly no exact map data is available in common map databases. As such, the Loadstone software provides users an option to create and store their own
waypoints for navigation
Navigation
Navigation is the process of monitoring and controlling the movement of a craft or vehicle from one place to another. It is also the term of art used for the specialized knowledge used by navigators to perform navigation tasks...
and share it with others. The Loadstone community is working on importing coordinates from free sources, such as the OpenStreetMap
OpenStreetMap
OpenStreetMap is a collaborative project to create a free editable map of the world. Two major driving forces behind the establishment and growth of OSM have been restrictions on use or availability of map information across much of the world and the advent of inexpensive portable GPS devices.The...
project.
In addition they are searching for a sponsor of licenses for commercial map data, such as is offered by the company Tele Atlas
Tele Atlas
Tele Atlas is a Netherlands-based company founded in 1984 which delivers digital maps and other dynamic content for navigation and location-based services, including personal and in-car navigation systems, and provides data used in a wide range of mobile and Internet map applications...
. The other major supplier is Navteq
NAVTEQ
Navteq is a Chicago, Illinois-based provider of Geographic Information Systems data and is a dominant company in providing the base electronic navigable maps...
, which belongs to Nokia.
Loadstone is the name of a natural magnetic iron that was used throughout history in the manufacturing of compasses.
Sighted owners of S60 devices can use Loadstone for leisure-time activities geocaching
Geocaching
Geocaching is an outdoor sporting activity in which the participants use a Global Positioning System receiver or mobile device and other navigational techniques to hide and seek containers, called "geocaches" or "caches", anywhere in the world....
.
Wayfinder Access
Wayfinder Access is an innovative GPS solution from the Swedish company Wayfinder Systems AB. This application for Symbian phones is designed especially to work with screen readers, such as Mobile SpeakMobile Speak
Mobile Speak software are full-fledged screen readers and Braille interfaces that let the blind and visually impaired access their mobile phone.-General description:...
from Code Factory or TALKS from Nuance Communications and offers text-to-speech technology. It is able to take the special needs of the blind and visually impaired into consideration. Symbian screen reader software offers more than just the reading of the application’s screens, but also provides Braille support.
Highlights of Wayfinder Access include, but are not limited to:
- Information provided for both pedestrian and vehicular navigation.
- A database of 20 million points of interest.
- Online maps that are regularly updated.
- The "Where am I?" feature that readily gives information about your current location.
- The "What is in my surrounding?" feature that initiates a scan of the immediate area to inform you of street names , intersections and nearby points of interest such as restaurants, banks, and much more.
- The new “Vicinity View” feature that allows you to hear audible references for an area with a scope that you can later adjust based on the radius of the scanned vicinity.
- Feedback on points of Interest (POI), crossings or favorites that can be restricted, prioritized, and presented according to their distance from your location.
Trekker
The Victor Trekker, designed and manufactured by HumanWare (previously known as VisuAide), was launched on March 2003. It is a personal digital assistant (PDAPersonal digital assistant
A personal digital assistant , also known as a palmtop computer, or personal data assistant, is a mobile device that functions as a personal information manager. Current PDAs often have the ability to connect to the Internet...
) application operating on a Pocket PC
Pocket PC
A Pocket PC is also known by Microsoft as a 'Windows Mobile Classic device'. It is a hardware specification for a handheld-sized computer, personal digital assistant , that runs the Microsoft 'Windows Mobile Classic' operating system...
, adapted for the blind and visually impaired with talking menus, talking maps, and GPS information. Fully portable
Portable
Portable may refer to:* Portable building, a manufactured structure that is built off site and moved in upon completion of site and utility work...
(weight 600g), it offered features enabling a blind person to determine position, create routes and receive information on navigating to a destination. It also provided search functions for an exhaustive database
Database
A database is an organized collection of data for one or more purposes, usually in digital form. The data are typically organized to model relevant aspects of reality , in a way that supports processes requiring this information...
of point of interests, such as restaurants, hotels, etc.
It is fully upgradeable, so it can expand to accommodate new hardware
Hardware
Hardware is a general term for equipment such as keys, locks, hinges, latches, handles, wire, chains, plumbing supplies, tools, utensils, cutlery and machine parts. Household hardware is typically sold in hardware stores....
platform
Platform (computing)
A computing platform includes some sort of hardware architecture and a software framework , where the combination allows software, particularly application software, to run...
s and more detailed geographic information.
Trekker and Maestro, which is the first off-the-shelf accessible PDA
Personal digital assistant
A personal digital assistant , also known as a palmtop computer, or personal data assistant, is a mobile device that functions as a personal information manager. Current PDAs often have the ability to connect to the Internet...
based on Windows Mobile Pocket PC, are integrated and available since May 2005.
Trekker Breeze
The Trekker Breeze is a standalone hardware. Routes need to be recorded before they can be used. POIs are supported.BrailleNote GPS
The BrailleNote GPS deviceInformation appliance
In general terms, an information appliance or information device is any machine or device that is usable for the purposes of computing, telecommunicating, reproducing, and presenting encoded information in myriad forms and applications....
is developed by Sendero Group, LLC, and Pulse Data International, now called HumanWare, in 2002. It is like a combination of a personal digital assistant, Map-quest software and a mechanical voice.
With a receiver about the size of a small cell phone, the BrailleNote GPS utilizes the GPS network to pinpoint a traveler’s position on earth and nearby points of interest. The personal computers receive radio signals from satellites to chart the location of users and direct them to their destination with recorded voice commands. The system uses satellites to triangulate the carrier’s position, much like a ship finding its location at sea.
Visually impaired people can encode
Encode
Encode may refer to:* Can be related to "Code"* Encode ApS, a Danish software company* Encode SA, a Greek information security company* ENCODE, the ENCyclopedia Of DNA Elements...
points of interest such as local restaurants or any other location, into the computer’s database. Afterward, they can punch keys on the unit’s keyboard to direct themselves to a specific point of interest.
Mobile Geo
Mobile Geo is Code Factory’s GPS navigation software for Windows Mobile-based Smartphones, Pocket PC phones and personal digital assistants (PDAs). Powered by GPS and mapping technology from the Sendero Group , a leading provider of GPS products for the blind, Mobile Geo is the first solution specifically designed to serve as a navigation aid for people with a visual impairment which works with a wide range of mainstream mobile devices. Though it is a separately licensed product, Mobile Geo is seamlessly integrated with Code Factory’s popular screen readers – Mobile SpeakMobile Speak
Mobile Speak software are full-fledged screen readers and Braille interfaces that let the blind and visually impaired access their mobile phone.-General description:...
for Pocket PCs and Mobile Speak
Mobile Speak
Mobile Speak software are full-fledged screen readers and Braille interfaces that let the blind and visually impaired access their mobile phone.-General description:...
for Windows Mobile Smartphones .
With Mobile Geo, you can pinpoint your location, learn about the points of interest (POIs) in your immediate vicinity, plan a route between specified points of origin and destination, and get instructions on maneuvers to make as well as information about waypoints along a route that you are following. However, Mobile Geo by no means replaces a cane or dog guide, and use of this product when traveling independently is recommended only when the blind user has received training in the skills of orientation and mobility.
The following is a list of what makes Mobile Geo a unique GPS product for the blind, eclipsing similar solutions currently available. Please note that most of these features will be present in the first version, while a few will be released in future updates of the product:
- Mobile Geo supports versions 5.0, 6.0, and 6.1 of the Windows Mobile operating system. This includes support for devices running Windows Mobile Professional (Pocket PC phone), Standard (Smartphone), and Classic (stand-alone PDA), editions of the operating system. This means that you can pick up a supported device from a local store or through your preferred mobile phone network operator, and upgrade to newer device models in the future whenever you wish.
- It is compatible with more than 300 personal digital assistants as well as mobile phones operating on GSM, CDMA and WCDMA networks.
- It functions as an add-on to Code Factory’s leading screen readers for Windows Mobile, which means that you get, besides the GPS solution, a fully accessible smartphone, PDA or phone+PDA hybrid device.
- It is available with map data and POI files for different countries including the USA, Canada, the UK and Ireland, Spain, France, Italy, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, South Africa, Australia, and the Singapore/Malaysia/Hong Kong region.
- It functions with speech output from various text-to-speech engines developed by leading providers, such as Fonix, LoquendoLoquendoLoquendo is a multinational computer software technology corporation, headquartered in Torino, Italy, that provides speech recognition, speech synthesis, speaker verification and identification applications...
, and Acapela. It is, therefore, able to speak more than 20 languages. - It works with external Bluetooth GPS receivers as well as the built-in GPS receivers present in some mobile devices.
- It can be used with the speech output routed to a Bluetooth headset.
- Application commands can be performed using numeric or QWERTY keyboards integrated with the device, the Pocket PC touch screen, or an external keyboard.
- It can be used with more than 20 different Braille devices for input and output.
- It is activated using Code Factory’s User-Centered Licensing system , which allows you to easily transfer your product license from one mobile device to another of the same platform type and version.
Kapsys Kapten
The French company Kapsys offers a navigation system without a display, that works with speech input and output, called Kapten.Trinetra
The Trinetra project aims to develop cost-effective, independence-enhancing technologies to benefit blind people. One such system addresses accessibility concerns of blind people using public transportation systems. Using GPS receivers and staggered InfraredInfrared
Infrared light is electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength longer than that of visible light, measured from the nominal edge of visible red light at 0.74 micrometres , and extending conventionally to 300 µm...
sensors, information is relayed to a centralized fleet management server via a cellular modem. Blind people, using common text-to-speech enabled cell phones can query estimated time of arrival, locality, and current bus capacity using a web browser
Web browser
A web browser is a software application for retrieving, presenting, and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web. An information resource is identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier and may be a web page, image, video, or other piece of content...
.
Trinetra, spearheaded by Professor Priya Narasimhan, is an ongoing project at the Electrical and Computer Engineering department of Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States....
. Additional research topics include item-level UPC
Universal Product Code
The Universal Product Code is a barcode symbology , that is widely used in North America, and in countries including the UK, Australia, and New Zealand for tracking trade items in stores. Its most common form, the UPC-A, consists of 12 numerical digits, which are uniquely assigned to each trade item...
and RFID identification while grocery shopping and indoor navigation in retail settings.
MoBIC
MoBIC means Mobility of Blind and Elderly people Interacting with Computers, which was carried out from 1994 to 1996 supported by the Commission of the European UnionEuropean Commission
The European Commission is the executive body of the European Union. The body is responsible for proposing legislation, implementing decisions, upholding the Union's treaties and the general day-to-day running of the Union....
. It was developing a route planning system which is designed to allow a blind person access to information from many sources such as bus and train timetables as well as electronic maps of the locality. The planning system helps blind people to study and plan their routes in advance, indoors.
With the addition of devices to give the precise current position and orientation of the blind pedestrian, the system could then be used outdoors. The outdoor positioning system is based on signals and satellite
Satellite
In the context of spaceflight, a satellite is an object which has been placed into orbit by human endeavour. Such objects are sometimes called artificial satellites to distinguish them from natural satellites such as the Moon....
s which give the longitude
Longitude
Longitude is a geographic coordinate that specifies the east-west position of a point on the Earth's surface. It is an angular measurement, usually expressed in degrees, minutes and seconds, and denoted by the Greek letter lambda ....
and latitude
Latitude
In geography, the latitude of a location on the Earth is the angular distance of that location south or north of the Equator. The latitude is an angle, and is usually measured in degrees . The equator has a latitude of 0°, the North pole has a latitude of 90° north , and the South pole has a...
to within a metre; the computer converts this data to a position on an electronic map of locality. The output from the system is in the form of spoken messages.
Drishti
Drishti is a wireless pedestrian navigation system. It integrates several technologies including wearable computers, voice recognition and synthesis, wireless networks, Geographic information systemGeographic Information System
A geographic information system, geographical information science, or geospatial information studies is a system designed to capture, store, manipulate, analyze, manage, and present all types of geographically referenced data...
(GIS) and GPS.
It augments contextual information to the visually impaired and computed optimized routes based on user preference, temporal constraints (e.g. traffic congestion), and dynamic obstacles (e.g. ongoing ground work, road blockade for special events).
The system constantly guides the blind user to navigate based on static and dynamic data. Environmental conditions and landmark information queries from a spatial database
Spatial Database
A spatial database is a database that is optimized to store and query data that is related to objects in space, including points, lines and polygons. While typical databases can understand various numeric and character types of data, additional functionality needs to be added for databases to...
along their route are provided on the fly through detailed explanatory voice cues. The system also provides capability for the user to add intelligence, as perceived by the blind user, to the central server hosting the spatial database
Database
A database is an organized collection of data for one or more purposes, usually in digital form. The data are typically organized to model relevant aspects of reality , in a way that supports processes requiring this information...
.
UCSB Personal Guidance System
In 1985, Jack Loomis, a Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, came up with the idea of GPS-based navigation system for the visually impaired. A short unpublished paper (Loomis, 1985) outlined the concept and detailed some ideas for implementation, including the idea of a virtual sound interface. Loomis directed the project for over 20 years, in collaboration with Reginald GolledgeReginald Golledge
Reginald George Golledge was an Australian-born American Professor of Geography at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He was named Faculty Research Lecturer for 2009...
(1937-2009), Professor of Geography at UCSB, and Roberta Klatzky
Roberta Klatzky
Roberta Klatzky is a Professor of Psychology at Carnegie Mellon University. She specializes in human perception and cognition, particularly relating to perception and representation of space and perception in nonvisual modalities. She has done extensive research on human haptic and visual object...
, Professor of Psychology (now at Carnegie Mellon University). Their combination of development and applied research was supported by three multi-year grants from the National Eye Institute (NEI) and another multi-year consortium grant from the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR), headed by Michael May of Sendero Group. In 1993, the UCSB group first publicly demonstrated the Personal Guidance System (PGS) using a bulky prototype carried in a backpack. Since then, they created several versions of the PGS, one of which was carried in a small pack worn at the waist. Their project mostly focused on the user interface and the resulting research has defined the legacy of the project. As indicated earlier in this entry, several wearable systems are now commercially available. These systems provide verbal guidance and environmental information via speech and Braille displays. But just as drivers and pilots want pictorial information from their navigation systems, survey research by the UCSB group has shown that visually impaired people often want direct perceptual information about the environment. Most of their R&D has dealt with several types of “spatial display”, with researchers Jim Marston and Nicholas Giudice contributing to the recent efforts. The first is a virtual acoustic display, which provides auditory information to the user via earphones (as proposed in the 1985 concept paper). With this display, the user hears important environmental locations, such as turn points along the route and points of interest. The labels of these locations are converted to synthetic speech and then displayed using auditory direction and distance cues, such that the spoken labels appear in the auditory space of the user. A second type of display, which the group calls a “haptic pointer interface”, was inspired by the hand-held receiver used in the Talking Signs© system of remote signage. The user holds a small wand, to which are attached an electronic compass and a small loudspeaker or vibrator. When the hand is pointing toward some location represented in the computer database, the user hears a tone or feels a vibration. Supplementary verbal information can be provided by synthetic speech. The user moves toward the desired location by aligning the body with the hand while maintaining the "on-course" auditory or vibratory signal. Other variants of the pointer interface involve putting the compass on the body or head and turning the body or head until the on-course signal is perceived. Six published route-guidance studies indicate that spatial displays provide effective route guidance, entail less cognitive load than speech interfaces, and are generally preferred by visually impaired users.
Brunel navigation system for the blind
Prof. W. Balachandran is the pioneer and the head of GPS research group at Brunel UniversityBrunel University
Brunel University is a public research university located in Uxbridge, London, United Kingdom. The university is named after the Victorian engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel....
. He and his research team are pursuing research on navigation
Navigation
Navigation is the process of monitoring and controlling the movement of a craft or vehicle from one place to another. It is also the term of art used for the specialized knowledge used by navigators to perform navigation tasks...
system for blind and visually impaired people. The system is based on the integration of state of the art current technologies, including high-accuracy GPS positioning, GIS, electronic compass and wireless
Wireless
Wireless telecommunications is the transfer of information between two or more points that are not physically connected. Distances can be short, such as a few meters for television remote control, or as far as thousands or even millions of kilometers for deep-space radio communications...
digital
Digital
A digital system is a data technology that uses discrete values. By contrast, non-digital systems use a continuous range of values to represent information...
video transmission
Transmission (telecommunications)
Transmission, in telecommunications, is the process of sending, propagating and receiving an analogue or digital information signal over a physical point-to-point or point-to-multipoint transmission medium, either wired, optical fiber or wireless...
(remote vision) facility with an accuracy of 3~4m.
It provides an automated guidance using the information from daily updated digital map datasets e.g. roadworks. If required the remote guidance of visually impaired pedestrians by a sighted human guide using the information from the digital map and from the remote video image provides flexibility.
The difficulties encountered includes the availability of up to date information
Information
Information in its most restricted technical sense is a message or collection of messages that consists of an ordered sequence of symbols, or it is the meaning that can be interpreted from such a message or collection of messages. Information can be recorded or transmitted. It can be recorded as...
and what information to offer including the navigation protocol
Communications protocol
A communications protocol is a system of digital message formats and rules for exchanging those messages in or between computing systems and in telecommunications...
.
Levels of functionality have been created to tailor
Tailor
A tailor is a person who makes, repairs, or alters clothing professionally, especially suits and men's clothing.Although the term dates to the thirteenth century, tailor took on its modern sense in the late eighteenth century, and now refers to makers of men's and women's suits, coats, trousers,...
the information to the user’s requirements.
NOPPA
NOPPA navigation and guidance system was designed to offer public transportTransport
Transport or transportation is the movement of people, cattle, animals and goods from one location to another. Modes of transport include air, rail, road, water, cable, pipeline, and space. The field can be divided into infrastructure, vehicles, and operations...
passenger and route information using GPS technology for the visually impaired. This was a three-year (2002~2004) project in VTT Industrial Systems in Finland. The system provides an unbroken trip chain for a pedestrian using buses, commuter trains and trams in three neighbor cities’ area.
It is based on an information server concept, which has user-centered and task oriented approach for solving information needs of special needs groups.
In the system, the Information Server
Server (computing)
In the context of client-server architecture, a server is a computer program running to serve the requests of other programs, the "clients". Thus, the "server" performs some computational task on behalf of "clients"...
is an interpreter
Interpreter (computing)
In computer science, an interpreter normally means a computer program that executes, i.e. performs, instructions written in a programming language...
between the user and Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
information systems. It collects, filters and integrates information from different sources and delivers results to the user.
The server handles speech recognition and functions requiring either heavy calculations or data transfer. The data transfer between the server and the client is minimized. The user terminal holds speech synthesis
Speech synthesis
Speech synthesis is the artificial production of human speech. A computer system used for this purpose is called a speech synthesizer, and can be implemented in software or hardware...
and most of route guidance.
NOPPA is currently able to offer basic route planning and navigation services in Finland.
In practice, the limits are map data can have outdated information or inaccuracies, positioning can be unavailable or inaccurate, or wireless data transmission is not always available.
Navig
NAVIG is an innovative multidisciplinary project, with fundamental and applied aspects. The main objective is to increase the autonomy of blind people in their navigation capabilities. Reaching a destination while avoiding obstacles is one of the most difficult issue that blind individuals have to face.Achieving autonomous navigation will be pursued indoor and outdoor, in known and unknown environments. The project consortium is composed by two research centers in computer sciences specialized in human-machine interaction (IRIT) for handicapped people and in auditory perception, spatial cognition, sound design and augmented reality (LIMSI). Another research center is specialized in human and computer vision (CERCO), and two industrial partners are active in artificial vision (Spikenet Technology) and in pedestrian geolocalisation (Navocap). The last member of the consortium is an educational research center for the visually impaired (CESDV – IJA, Institute of Blind Youth).
External links
- Loadstone project
- Wayfinder Access (discontinued)
- Trekker (Humanware)
- Sendero Group
- Sense Nav (GW Micro)
- Mobile Geo
- LoroDux, an OpenStreetMapOpenStreetMapOpenStreetMap is a collaborative project to create a free editable map of the world. Two major driving forces behind the establishment and growth of OSM have been restrictions on use or availability of map information across much of the world and the advent of inexpensive portable GPS devices.The...
subproject - Kapsys
research
- (Loomis 1985 memo)
- (UCSB Personal Guidance System site)
- (Route Guidance Studies headed by Loomis)
- (Jack Loomis Personal Website)
- http://www.psych.ucsb.edu/people/faculty/loomis/index.php,
- Trinetra
- BNSB (Brunel navigation system for the blind)
- Summary of related research references
- CASBlip (cognitive aid system for the blind people)
- Mobile Sorcery (Sweden)
- Navig (France)