Wayfinding Technologies for People with Visual Impairments: Research and Development of an Integrated Platform

Principal researcher

Project details

Start date: 01/12/2001
End date: 01/12/2006

Description: This project develops a hardware and software platform that provides accessible location and navigation information for people who are blind or who have visual impairments who are traveling in indoor and outdoor environments. Development activities focus on creating an effective user interface and developing a common hardware and software platform that exploits the Global Positioning System (GPS) and other current and emerging navigation technologies. Specific activities include integrating navigation aids that have been developed by Sendero LLC (GPS Talk) and by the University of California-Santa Barbara/CMU group headed by Jack Loomis (the Personal Guidance System, or PGS). The platform also accesses information from other devices, including Talking-Signs™ type devices, intersection signalization controls, an indoor digital sign system to be developed during this project at the University of Minnesota, a spatialized tactile stimulator to be developed at UCSB, a dead reckoning pedestrian navigation system, and cellular phones with GPS capabilities. For navigating in outdoor environments, a system could aid pedestrians who are blind at complex intersections and roundabouts, and devices could assess and prevent veer.

Other organisations involved in this project

Sendero Group, Univ. of California, Santa Barbara

Western Michigan University

University of Minnesota

Carnegie-Mellon University

Funded by National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research.

Last updated: 02/04/2008