A distributed sensor network approach for orientation tasks

The possibility to provide people with visual impairments walking in indoor environment with an optimized degree of information about the presence of services and hazards is of primary importance to improve their autonomy and self estimate. Many passive systems are currently adopted such as tactile paths or Braille signs, anyway the use of active systems easily reconfigurable and interacting with the visually impaired users would terrifically improve their perception of the environment, their context awareness and their autonomy. In this paper, a distributed sensor network approach is proposed to assist visually impaired people exploring an indoor environment. The system developed aims to notify the presences of services and hazards and it must coexist with other form of mobility aids (e.g. tactile paths). Main advantages of the system developed, as respect to the State of the Art, are the continuous monitoring of users position inside the environment, the optimized redundancy of information to be provided to the user, the high re-configurability, and the adaptive level of assistance to be provided to the user on the basis of his/her needs, ability and skills.