Navigaid - for the visually impaired

Navigaid is an electronic companion for navigation and is the result of a design process with visually impaired that was carried out as a course project at KTH in Stockholm.

Scenario

A typical situation, in which Navigaid can be of assistance, is when a user wants to walk somewhere and needs detailed directions because of difficulties to see. The instructions might be as the following, maintained by the user.

Walking from home to the grocery store:

Walk out through the door to a 2 meter broad pavement. Turn right and follow the house wall. After 5 meters there is a parking meter, pass that. The house wall has windows with metal grids for about 30 meters. Follow the wall until the end of those and a protruding entrance. The wall continues after the entrance, pass 3 windows with metal sills at hip height and a grid gate. After the grid gate there is a dark house wall made of brick. Follow the wall a short distance to a second grid gate and then 15 meters more to a corner with a metal box. Leave the house wall at the box and continue straight on, a rubble surface with trees is on the left, cross a pavement up to a metal railing. Follow the railing 8 meters to the left until you reach a wastepaper basket and a pole with a clicking sound. Walk to the right of the pole and cross the road to a refuge with a clicking pole and onwards to a third pole with a clicking sound at a house wall. Follow the wall to the left, until there is a shop window. Follow that to the end, after another meter the entrance to the grocery is to the right

The electronic companion can tell you this, captured in a small and mobile device that either resembles or is contained in a cellular phone, with a combination of various technologies: GPS, synthetic speech, electronic compass etc. Through this it would be possible for the users to know where they are, in what direction they are headed and how to proceed to get to the goal. In order to make the directions accurate and up to date the users are integrated in the maintenance of them. Users can record a new route and upload it to a public database on the Internet.

The unit and the directions will assist in the planning of routes hence offering more autonomy and flexibility to the user and thereby increasing the user¹s confidence in his/her ability to explore unknown environments.

THanks to

Per Alksten, Per-Olof Andersson, Ilias Bennani, Britt-Marie Berner, Peter Bianconi, Bengt Eriksson, Dagny Mörck, Siw Ohlsson, Leif Sunesson, Monica Ulmeryd, Anki Wahlström, Monicka Zackari och Anita Örum.

Fredrik Winberg, supervisor