A navigational aid for persons with severe visual impairments: a project in progress

Author

Szeto, Andrew Y.J.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., San Diego State Univ., CA, USA

Volume

2

fYear

2003

fDate

17-21 Sept. 2003

Firstpage

1637

Abstract

Persons with severe visual impairments face significant obstacles in achieving independent mobility that is safe and robust in terms of possible emergencies and unfamiliar destinations. Widely used mobility aids such as a guide dog and/or white cane offer only limited solutions to this problem. Proposed retrofits of multistory buildings with fixed-point annunciators (to assist with the wayfinding indoors) are inflexible and costly. The personal navigational aid envisioned below attempts to address many of the problems faced by persons who are blind. This aid will incorporate many of the features of a personal data assistant (PDA), cellular phone, wireless Internet access, and Global Positioning System (GPS) and is currently undergoing initial systems design and review of performance specifications by potential users.

Keywords

Global Positioning System; Internet; cellular radio; handicapped aids; notebook computers; vision defects; GPS; Global Positioning System; blind people; cellular phone; fixed-point annunciators; independent mobility; mobility aids; multistory buildings retrofits; navigational aid; personal data assistant; severe visual impairments; wireless Internet access; Cellular phones; Dogs; Global Positioning System; Hazards; Internet; Monitoring; Navigation; Personal digital assistants; Research and development; Robustness;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, 2003. Proceedings of the 25th Annual International Conference of the IEEE

ISSN

1094-687X

Print_ISBN

0-7803-7789-3

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/IEMBS.2003.1279688

Filename

1279688