A GUIDING SYSTEM FOR BLIND PEOPLE USING GPS

A PROJECT REPORT

Submitted by

S.HARI BABU 080407102094

V.M.MOHAMED NAZAR 080407102105

S.SRINIVASAN 080407102120

K.KAAVANNAN 080407102126

DEPARTMENT OF ECE

COIMBATORE INSTITUTE OF ENGINEERING AND INFORMATION

TECHNOLOGY

COIMBATORE-641109

ANNA UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY

COIMBATORE 641047

OCTOBER 2010
 ANNA UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY, COIMBATORE 641047

BONAFIDE CERTICATE

Certified that this project report “ A GUIDING SYSTEM FOR BLIND PEOPLE
USING GPS ” is the bonafide work of …………………………………………..
………………………….. who have carried out the project work under my
supervision.

SIGNATURE SIGNATURE

SUPERVISOR HEAD OF THE DEPARTMENT

-------------------------- -----------------------------

Internal Examiner External Examiner

ABSTRACT

The blind people have problem in finding the location where they are and
also to cross the traffic junction. The device help them by guiding wherever they
needed to go. The device will guide then where they are at now and how they has
to obtain the destination.

The Obstacle detector detect the object in front of the blind people and
indicate them. The GPS that directly communicates with the satellite and send data
to guiding device to find the current location of user. The guiding device that
communicate with sever through the RF transmitter & receiver that will send the
audio response to the guiding device as user convenient. The server will also
updating the status of the traffic signal that in the path of the user by
communicating with the traffic control unit. So the server can send the information
to guiding device to help the user to cross the traffic junction.

This device will accommodate the blind people as like a one person with
them. So they don’t need to depend on others. This can be implementing in the
mobile also. So they need not carry an external device with them.
INTRODUCTION
According to the World Health Organization, there are 45 million blind
people in the world, which amounts to an estimated 1h to 2h of the population in
industrialized countries. This figure cannot be neglected, and the problems
encountered by blind people in their everyday life need to be addressed. In
particular, these people are faced with huge difficulties moving in cities, where
streets, public transportation systems and shopping malls represent hostile ever-
changing environments. As a result, blind people are in danger while moving on
their own, and their autonomy is limited. Indeed, if blind people can generally
remember their way to some places, they cannot know in advance what obstacles
they will stumble upon. In consequence, the fear of the unknown often leads them
to restrict their universe to a small set of known places. They do not dare going
anywhere else, thus experiencing limited travel freedom.

Leader dogs can help blind people avoid obstacles and find their way in
unknown environments, but they are very expensive: the cost per blind person –
leader dog pair ranges from $15,000 to $30,000. Despite the financial support of
some organizations such as the Lions Club, only very few blind people can
actually have a leader dog, while many of them would like to.

However, leader dogs represent a very valuable means of dealing with

unknown places. Indeed, they see obstacles at a distance, and can therefore
anticipate the necessary avoidance maneuvers. In contrast, blind people using
canes can feel silent obstacles at a cane’s length distance only, so their anticipation
capability is very poor. The dog can help them improve their anticipation
performances, which leads directly to more fluent trajectories, more self-
confidence and easier travel.
 This is the reason why numerous electronic locomotion assistance systems
have been developed. The vast majority of existing systems are obstacle detectors
that can warn users of the presence of obstacles in advance, so as to enable them to
anticipate the presence of obstacles and adapt their behavior accordingly.
Electronic devices are significantly cheaper than leader dogs, although erring more
limited, yet valuable information.

It is important to notice that the white cane is not only a useful obstacle
detector for blind people, but also a means by which blind people are recognized
by sighted people. In consequence, all locomotion assistance devices for the blind
must be designed to be secondary aids, used in complement to the long cane, and
not instead of it, because they are not inherently social indicators of blindness. In
this chapter, we first present an overview of existing obstacle detectors, while
distinguishing two die rent facets in these systems: information capture and
information presentation. After, we discuss the shortcomings of existing systems
and we draw a list of requirements for more advanced systems. Then, we give
details about the implementation issues of this new class of systems: user
localization and environment modeling, from the structural and semantic points of
view. Finally, we show how these issues take place within the broader field if
ambient intelligence.
LITERATURE SURVEY

IN REF [Project Number: 48 JFZ- D073 ]

GPS TECHNOLOGY TO AID THE BLIND AND PARTIALLY

SIGHTED IN COPENHAGEN

Project done by
Troy Coverstone
Christine Cronin
Sofie Kniazeva
Date: May 7, 2007
Advisor:
Professor John Zeugner,

Abstract:

This project, jointly sponsored in Copenhagen by the Danish Association of

the Blind (DBS) and the Euman Company, assessed the feasibility of using
Euman’s LifePilot GPS technology for blind and partially sighted individuals.
After conducting literature research as well as surveys and focus groups, the team
concluded that there is a potential for Euman technology, currently being
eveloped, and an overall need for navigational aids, and recommended a variety of
features for a GPS based device that would prove useful in the visually impaired
community.
Executive Summary:

This project, jointly sponsored in Copenhagen by the Danish Association of

the Blind and the Euman Company, assessed the feasibility of integrating the
LifePilot GPS technology (produced by Euman) into the blind and partially sighted
community.

Project Statement:

There are over forty-five million blind and partially sighted people
worldwide that face everyday challenges living with such a disability presents (Up
to 45 Million Blind People Globally - and Growing, 2007). This project explored
current technology, specifically the Lifepilot GPS devices, as a promising aid for
both support and encouragement to the blind and partially sighted as they strive for
an independent life. The project focused on identifying the features that should be
included in such a device in order to make it better adapted for the visually
impaired community. The following study was broken down into multiple parts.
First, there was extensive background research into what technology currently
exists on the worldwide market for the visually impaired and what studies have
already been conducted in this area. Next, surveys were written and submitted to
members of the Danish Association of the Blind to gauge a basic understanding of
the desire and need for GPS technology. In addition the project team visited
several institutions for the blind, and underwent blindness sensitivity training.
After the surveys proved a general interest in GPS devices, two focus groups were
held in order to get more in-depth data. Three of the volunteers were able to test
the software on a simple route pre-designed by the project team and with way
points identified in Danish and pre-recorded on the server to be activated as the
GPS swept across them. The participants gave their feedback on the various way
points although more often than not during the trails the GPS positioning was
inaccurate or the pre-corded messages failed to play (a software problem that was
fixed after the focus group sessions were held).

The survey and focus groups proved to be very successful tools in

determining how GPS technology can best benefit blind and partially sighted
individuals. A myriad of suggestions came from the focus groups but tended to
coalesce around the following assertions: on demand information (via a push of a
button) on location, street lights, etc.; a special route with all bus stops and
information about them listed; the buttons on the device should be noticeably
separated.

Extensive testing by the project team revealed widespread deficiencies in the

current software on the Life pilot cell phones. Specifically, the main server proved
to be erratic and undependable, and the linkage between GPS way points and audio
descriptions often proved faulty. So difficult were the technology issues that the
project team could only conduct one actual test with visually impaired participants
(in which the participants were only able to test the route from the DBS to the 2nd
turn location). Those tests revealed further problems: the necessarily inaccurate
identifications via the GPS system, great difficulty using the closely spaced and
tiny buttons and lack of speech recognition software. However, there remained
several features of the technology that blind and partially sighted users favored and
hoped could be extended and modified. For example, the ability to record their
own voice messages, the fact that the audio can be replayed and the capability to
share the routes via the internet, and messages can be replayed again and again so
as to overcome outside noise. Moreover, in the very last days of the project, the
software was dramatically improved, although the structured imprecision of non-
military GPS remains an insurmountable impasse.

Through this study, it can be seen that GPS technology, specifically Life
pilot, has potential to help many blind and partially sighted individuals. Issues with
the software will need to be worked out and the devices themselves will need to be
better adapted for visually impaired (i.e. voice recognition software, large button
sizes, etc). Furthermore through the course of research and focus group discussion
the project team learned of several other innovations that might prove useful both
to the sponsoring agencies and to blind and partially sighted community in
Denmark such as Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology. It is
recommended that both groups look into (RFID) technology as an aid for the blind
and partially sighted. Perhaps, a combination of GPS and RFID technology could
be successful in the future. The GPS would allow the user to navigate to a general
area (i.e. a specific train station) and the RFID would allow for more accuracy for
immediate surroundings (i.e. a doorway inside the train station).

One of the most important aspects of this study is that a majority of the data
gathered was from blind and partially sighted individuals; the people who can
benefit from this technology. By using their suggestions and adapting the GPS
technology, a mutually beneficial product can be formed that can provide aid for
the visually impaired on an everyday basis.

Comments:

These routes were examined as alternative routes to address the issue of high
traffic and commotion. Unlike the first test route, they both followed back streets,
with little to no automobile activities. However, as seen in the following pictures,
the sidewalks were not suitable for blind and visually impaired individuals: they
were not clearly marked and had parked cars blocking half of them. Furthermore,
they included intersections with no lights.
In W. Barfield & T. Caudell (Eds.),
Fundamentals of Wearable Computers - and
Augmented Reality. Mahwah NJ: Lawrence
Erlbaum Associates, 2001.

GPS-Based Navigation Systems for the Visually Impaired

Jack M. Loomis, Reginald G. Golledge

University of califormia santa barbara
Roberta L. Klatzky
Carnegie Mellon university

INTRODUCTION

According to the 1990 U.S. Census of Population, there are approximately

1.1 million individuals registered as legally blind and up to 3 million reporting
severe vision impairment. Yet another 3 to 4 million are visually impaired to the
degree that they cannot drive andlor have difficulty readit@ signs or printed
material. The most fundamental needs of visually impaired or blind populations
include access to information (particularly that presented in written format),
accessibility to the environment, an independence of movement. Our focus here is
on the latter two needs.

Accessibility to the environment is important for all individuals. Access

includes not only physical mobility, such as making a trip to a store by a selected
transportation mode, but also being able to recognize key choice points or decision
points in the environment (e.g.. landmarks, streets, of neighborhoods).
Accessibility therefore involves the ability to interpret,

recognize, and understand the layout of features in the environment as well as

being able to travel in as obstacle-free a manner as possible.

For many blind people the loss of sight is paralleled by a loss of

independence. Of the 1.1 million legally blind persons in the United States,
approximately 10,000 use guide dogs and 100,000 are able to travel somewhat
independently using a long cane. This leaves approximately 1 million people who
are dependent on other humans for movement, information processing, and
environmental interpretation and use. Loss of independence is probably the most
humbling of all the disadvantages associated with the loss of sight. A wearable
device that can reduce dependence in all manners of interaction with the local
environment is of the utmost importance to increasing the quality of life for the
blind or visually impaired individual.
 This chapter details the current state of research and development on GPS-
based navigation systems for the visually impaired, most of which are portable,
verging on wearable. It begins with a consideration of the need for such systems by
the visually impaired, distinguishing between two different aspects of way
finding--obstacle avoidance and navigation. It then reviews a number of efforts
aimed at developing navigation aids for the visually impaired and then focuses first
on other projects dealing with GPS-based navigation systems and then on our own
project. It then briefly describes some research we have done on the display of
information for route guidance and for conveying the spatial layout of important
off-route entities (e.g., landmarks) and ends with a consideration of the obstacles to
be overcome in implementing effective practical systems.
Comments:

In view of the ever improving accuracy of GPS receivers, increasing

coverage of differential correction, decreasing size and cost of electronics,
increasing sophistication of GIs software, and growing availability of digital maps
suitable for pedestrian travel, the prospects are excellent that truly wearable GPS-
based navigation systems will someday be used by both the visually impaired and
sighted populations (in connection with the latter, see Feiner, MacIntyre, Hollerer,
& Webster, 1997). Surely, obstacles remain, such as the development of low-cost
alternatives to GPS when GPS coverage is lacking, creation and maintenance of
digital maps appropriate to blind travel, fabrication of reliable, affordable, and
lightweight systems for all-weather operation, and coping with the inevitable
liability issues.
 The Blind Leading the Blind: Toward Collaborative Online Route
Information Management by Individuals with Visual Impairments

Vladimir Kulyukin
vladimir.kulyukin@usu.edu
Department of Computer Science
Utah State University, Logan, UT
John Nicholson
jnicholson@cc.usu.edu
Department of Computer Science
Utah State University, Logan, UT
David Ross
ross0128@bellsouth.net
Atlanta VA Rehab R&D Center
Atlanta, GA
James Marston
marston@geog.ucsb.edu
Department of Geography
University of California Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara, CA
Florence Gaunet
florence.gaunet@wanadoo.fr
Laboratoire d’Eco-Anthropologie
et d’Ethnobiologie (CNRS-MNHN-ParisVII)
Paris, France
Abstract

The long-term objective of our project is to discover the fundamental

principles underlying the collaborative production, sharing, and management of
route information by travelers with visual impairments. The specific research
hypothesis is two-fold: 1) people with varied levels of vision loss and orientation
and mobility (O&M) skills will be able to form online social networks that
collaboratively manage large route information collections for different geographic
areas, and 2) members of such networks will be able to successfully travel through
a variety of previously unknown indoor and outdoor environments of varied
complexity when provided with online verbal route directions referencing
landmarks and path integration information salient to their particular vision and
skill level. In this paper, we report on the initial stage of our project: an online
survey whose objectives are to collect samples of route descriptions from travelers
with visual impairments and to do the initial profiling of the target population. The
data collected so far provide valuable insights into what travelers with visual
impairments need to know about their environments in order to travel
independently and how they may communicate that information to their fellow
travelers in the future.

Introduction

The adoption of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (U.S.Congress 1973) and the
Americans with Disabilities Act of1990 (ADA) (U.S. Congress 1990) provided
legal and financial incentives for improvement in universal access (LaPlante &
Carlson 1996). Many R&D activities initiated by the Acts focused on removing
structural barriers to universal access: building ramps and bus lifts, developing
specialized interfaces, e.g., haptic, Braille, sip and puff, to electronic and
mechanical devices, and retrofitting auto vehicles for wheelchair access. These
important pursuits have not removed the main functional barrier faced by people
with visual impairments: the great difficulty of independently orienting to, and
navigating through, dynamic and complex everyday

environments. This barrier severely limits their ability to travel independently

outdoors, impedes spontaneous use of public transportation, denies them equal
access to

buildings, and helps create conditions that cause this group to have one of the
highest unemployment rates of all disabled groups (74%) (Kaye, Kang, & LaPlante
2000).

Much R&D effort has been dedicated to wearable assisted navigation solutions
using various sensors including GPS (Loomis et al. 2005), infrared (Addlesee et
al. 2001), radio frequency identification (RFID) (Ross 2001), and Wi-Fi (Kulyukin
& Nicholson 2005). While these approaches haveshown promise, they have had
limited success due to the following gaps.

Conclusions

If routes are well described for a given environment and collections of route
descriptions are made available, then the visual impaired will have a powerful tool.
University students new to a campus could independently find their classrooms.

Travelers to cities could explore tourist sites in a manner similar to sighted

visitors. The accessibility barriers for visually impaired navigators would be
drastically lowered. A well-formed ontology for route descriptions to the blind will
serve multiple purposes. Using the ontology as a guide, sighted people could be
enlisted to initially build and tag basic collections of routes. Later, using
collaborative tools, the visually impaired could refine the routes, add new tags and
routes, and manage the emerging route collections. The ontology could also serve
to help define a structure that would ensure that software tools could be developed
to extract and develop new routes from the user-provided data. In time, one can
envision databases of route descriptions accessible through multiple devices such
as desktop computer systems, PDAs, cell phones, and electronic travel aids. Such
databases would likely be relevant to people with cognitive disabilities, allowing
them to travel independently in their environment as well.

We are working toward a collaborative online service that can be managed

by individuals with visual impairments independently or as an enhancement to
other navigation technologies. Many navigation technologies use GPS to guide
travelers around outdoor environments, but GPS does not work indoors. Our
service could eventually be used in conjunction with GPS and other existing
outdoor-oriented travel aids to guide an traveler through both indoor and outdoor
environments with comfort and ease.
 Designing a Computational Construction Kit for the Blind and
Visually Impaired

by

Rahul Bhargava

Introduction

Computers and Learning

In recent years, computers have become established elements of many types

of learning settings, used in different ways for various learning activities.
Unfortunately, the power of the computer as a flexible medium for designing and
creating has often been ignored. Tools that are designed to let users create their
own constructions empower learners to engage computation as a creative material.
The process of creating these artifacts opens the door to a myriad of learning
opportunities, many in fields that are otherwise difficult to approach. More
specifically, in the process of creating computational objects, many of the
underlying ideas of computation itself can be explored.

The blind and visually impaired often interact with more computational
devices in learning settings, but have even fewer opportunities to create with
computation itself. The visually impaired° use tools such as adjustable magnifiers,
text scanners, and speech-synthesis devices to access curricular materials that are
otherwise inaccessible. Visually impaired people use computers to do word
processing, send email, and surf the web, among other things. However, none of
these tools take advantage of the opportunity to engage learners in explorations of
how these computational tools can be used to create their own artifacts. The
growing reliance on “black-box” devices in learning settings can be inherently
disempowering to the learner – denying them not only of an understanding of their
functionality, but also the chance to explore the rationale behind their design.

New Tools for New Explorations

Playing with computational construction kits can allow people to create in

new ways and engage new fields of knowledge. A computational construction kit
can be described as a set of tools or objects that allow one to create a
computational artifact. They build on the tradition of existing children’s
construction kits, such as LEGO bricks and Erector sets, by giving children a set of
digital building blocks. The Programmable Brick is a computational construction
kit that allows users to create behaviors for their constructions in the physical
world (Resnick,1993). It can be programmed to interact with the world around it
using a wide range of sensors and actuators. These extensions, in addition to the
“brain” that is the Brick itself, are the components of the kit. The Programmable
Brick has been developed and iterated upon for the past 15 years in the MIT Media
Lab’s Epistemology and Learning Group (http://el.www.media.mit.edu/).

Creating a computational construction kit is “a type of meta-design: it

involves the design of new tools and activities to support students in their own
design activities” (Resnick, et al. 1996). Giving learners the tools to create and
build their own computational artifacts opens the door to exploring new ideas. In
order to address some of the issues presented, I have created a Programmable
Brick for the visually impaired, called the Bricket. This thesis documents the
hardware and software interfaces redesigned to
meet the learning needs of the visually impaired. I developed a series of activities
that use the Bricket to explore a set of approaches to learning and specific skills to
learn.. These activities were conducted with a group of three visually impaired
children, all in their early teens.

A user interacts with a Programmable Brick by creating a software program

on a host unit, usually a desktop computer, and then downloading

it to the Brick’s memory. The Brick can then run the program to inter Cricket. Act
with the world around it. An older Programmable Brick evolved into the
commercially available LEGO Mindstorms product based around the RCX (also
referred to as the “yellow brick”). The latest Programmable Brick is known as the
Cricket . The Bricket created for this thesis, is an adapted version of the Cricket.
Users create programs for the Bricket on a Windows PC running an application
called Bricket Logo. This application implements a small scripting version of the
LOGO programming language.

A Programmable Brick for the Visually Impaired

The Bricket was created to bring these technologies and activities to the
visually impaired community. The inspiration for this project came from Sile
O’Modhrain, while she was at the MIT Media Lab as a visiting researcher°. Sile is
visually impaired, and conversations with her led to the idea that this could be an
interesting community to work with.

There were a multitude of reasons that the visually impaired community was
an appropriate one to work with. Technologically, the basic sensors of the
Programmable Brick, used with various actuators, are well suited to representing
specific components of visual feedback. Simple resistive light sensors and optical
distance sensors can replace things such

as light and distance, which are usually sensed through vision. These basic sensors
are also well suited to the limited processing power of the Programmable Bricks.
From a theoretical point of view, working with this community presents an
opportunity to take the research of the Epistemology and Learning group in a new
direction. Addressing the learning needs and learning styles of the visually
impaired led to reflections about the foundational frameworks we use in our
research.

Many methodologies have been created to guide designing for disabled

communities, but most share a core high-level of interaction with the community.
Believing that to be a key ingredient to successful designs, I engaged two members
of the visually impaired community to aid and guide me. The first was Sile
O’Modhrain. The second was Rich Calaggero, a visually impaired programmer
who works in the MIT assistive technologies office (ATIC). I held weekly
consultations with both to get immediate feedback on design decisions.

Conclusion

This thesis presents an example of technologies that allow the visually

impaired to create computational artifacts and activities that allow them to explore
relevant domains of knowledge. I have documented the process of developing for
this community’s needs, and the learning topics that were discovered to be
important to the participants of my study.

Bringing the constructionist approach towards learning activities to this new

community proved quite successful. In particular, focusing on activities with
physical constructions proved appropriate. It quickly became apparent that because
of their visual impairment, the learners I worked with felt comfortable engaging
with tools in a tactile way. This interaction lends itself towards building physical
objects. While constructionist activities do not all focus around tangible objects,
this audience seems to find those most resonant with their interaction patterns.

The case studies present a closer look at exactly what ideas I explored with
my study participants. Their constructions show a willingness to adopt the Bricket
technology as a creative tool to build with. Building their own computational
devices introduced them to some basic ideas of computation and engineering. They
cam up with numerous ideas that are similar to commercial offerings, such as

• an audio note-taker

• a remote control for the television

• a speaking watch

All of these are assistive devices designed for and sold to the visually
impaired community. The Bricket computational construction kit we worked with
gave these learners an inclination of how the various pieces of electronics in these
devices are put together and controlled. However, they were able to do so in a way
that explored some foundational ideas of computation, changing their attitudes
towards what computation is.
PROPOSED WORK
In our project we are having three modules namely

 Guiding device
 Traffic unit
 Server unit

GUIDING DEVICE

BLOCK DIAGRAM

OBSTACLE ADC
DETECTOR

GPS Microcontroller Encoder Transmitter

Speaker Audio
Receiver

The Obstacle detector detect the object in front of the blind people. That
signal will converted into digital signal ADC circuit and given to the
microcontroller. The microcontroller signal is given to the encoder and depends on
the input signal from the obstacle detector; the encoder signal is transmitted
through the transmitter.
 The Global Positioning System (GPS) is any instrument which is directly
communicates with the satellite. By fixing this instrument, the instrument gathers
the location of it in the world from the satellite. This data from the satellite is given
to the microcontroller. The microcontroller signal is given to the encoder and
depends on the input signal from the GPS; the encoder signal is transmitted
through the transmitter.

TRAFFIC UNIT

BLOCK DIAGRAM

Micro Controller

North road LED

RF Transmitter Encoder
East road LED

West road LED

South road LED

In this traffic unit the turn ON the LED based the predefined delay in the
traffic signal. The LEDs are controlled by the microcontroller and this
information’s are also been encoded and transmitted through the transmitter.
SERVER UNIT

Receiver Decoder Microcontroll RS232 Computer

er

Audio
Receiver Decoder Transmitter

The radio frequency send from the transmitter is received by the receiver
and decode through the decoder. This signal is given to the microcontroller. Thus
the signal from the GPS is received by the microcontroller in the receiver and the
location from the GPS is send to the computer through the interfacing circuit. We
are using the visual basic software for the data communication in the computer. By
programming in the computer, we can transmit the voice signal from it through the
RF transmitter. This voice signal can be received and hear by the blind person
through the speaker. Thus a blind person can hear the indication of the object in
front of them and also location using GPS technology.