A low cost outdoor assistive navigation system for blind people

With over 39 million visually impaired people worldwide, the need for an assistive device that allows the blind user navigate freely is crucial. We have developed an off-line navigation device that uses 3-D sounds to provide navigation instructions to the user. Our device relays directional information to the user through special Audio Bone headphones, which use bone conduction technology. Sounds are recorded and can therefore be selected by the blind user. Navigation processing is handled by a Raspberry Pi. We are using a magnetic compass and gyroscope to calculate the direction that the user is facing. Route queries of the destination address are geocoded using the Geo-Coder-US module and passed to the MoNav module to generate a pedestrian route. Additional capabilities of the device include speech recognition and voice prompts for obtaining the user´s desired destination address. The user can input the address b y speaking into a microphone. The entire system is mounted to a pack that sits on the user´s waist. It is very light and portable and it does not impede any of the user´s senses while it is being used.