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A Real Time Indoor Navigation and Monitoring System for Firefighters and Visually Impaired
ABSTRACT
A REAL TIME INDOOR NAVIGATION AND MONITORING SYSTEM FOR FIREFIGHTERS AND VISUALLY IMPAIRED
MAY 2011
SIDDHESH RAJAN GANDHI
M.S. E.C.E, UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST
Directed by: Professor Aura Ganz
There has been a widespread growth of technology in almost every facet of day to day life. But there are still important application areas in which technology advancements have not been implemented in a cost effective and user friendly manner. Such applications which we will address in this proposal include: 1) indoor localization and navigation of firefighters during rescue operations and 2) indoor localization and navigation for the blind and visually impaired population.
Firefighting is a dangerous job to perform as there can be several unexpected hazards while rescuing victims. Since the firefighters do not have any knowledge about the internal structure of the fire ridden building, they will not be able to find the location of the EXIT door, a fact that can prove to be fatal. We introduce an indoor location tracking and navigation system (FIREGUIDE) using RFID technology integrated with augmented reality. FIREGUIDE assists the firefighters to find the nearest exit location by providing the navigation instructions to the exits as well as an Augmented Reality view of the location and direction of the exits. The system also presents the Incident Commander the current firefighter’s location superimposed on a map of the building floor. We envision that the FIREGUIDE system will save a significant number of firefighters and victims’ lives.
Blind or visually impaired people find it difficult to navigate independently in both outdoor and indoor environments. The outdoor navigation problem can be solved by using systems that have GPS support. But indoor navigation systems for the blind or visually impaired are still a challenge to conquer, given the requirements of low cost and user friendly operation. In order to enhance the perception of indoor and unfamiliar environments for the blind and visually-impaired, as well as to aid in their navigation through such environments, we propose a novel approach that provides context–aware navigation services. INSIGHT uses RFID (Radio Frequency Identification), and tagged spaces (audio landmarks), enabling a ubiquitous computing system with contextual awareness of its users while providing them persistent and context-aware information. We present INSIGHT system that supports a number of unique features such as: a) Low deployment and maintenance cost; b) Scalability, i.e. we can deploy the system in very large buildings; c) An on-demand system that does not overwhelm the user, as it offers small amounts of information on demand; and d) Portability and ease-of-use, i.e., the custom handheld device carried by the user is compact and instructions are received audibly
CDI-Type II: Collaborative Research: Cyber Enhancement of Spatial Cognition for the Visually Impaired
Wayfinding is an essential capability for any person who wishes to have an independent life-style. It requires successful execution of several tasks including navigation and object and place recognition, all of which necessitate accurate assessment of the surrounding environment. For a visually-impaired person these tasks may be exceedingly difficult to accomplish and there are risks associated with failure in any of these. Guide dogs and white canes are widely used for the purpose of navigation and environment sensing, respectively. The former, however, has costly and often prohibitive training requirements, while the latter can only provide cues about obstacles in one\u27s surroundings. Human performance on visual information dependent tasks can be improved by sensing which provides information and environmental cues, such as position, orientation, local geometry, object description, via the use of appropriate sensors and sensor fusion algorithms. Most work on wayfinding aids has focused on outdoor environments and has led to the development of speech-enabled GPS-based navigation systems that provide information describing streets, addresses and points of interest. In contrast, the limited technology that is available for indoor navigation requires significant modification to the building infrastructure, whose high cost has prevented its wide use. This proposal adopts a multi-faceted approach for solving the indoor navigation problem for people with limited vision. It leverages expertise from robotics, computer vision, and blind spatial cognition with behavioral studies on interface design to guide the discovery of information requirements and optimal delivery methods for an indoor navigation system. Designing perception and navigation algorithms, implemented on miniature-size commercially-available hardware, while explicitly considering the spatial cognition capabilities of the visually impaired, will lead to the development of indoor navigation systems that will assist blind people in their wayfinding tasks while facilitating cognitive-map development
A pathway to independence : wayfinding systems which adapt to a visually impaired person's context
Despite an increased amount of technologies and systems designed to address the navigational requirements of the visually impaired community of approximately 7.4 million in Europe, current research has failed to sufficiently address the human issues associated to their design and use. As more types of sensing technologies are developed to facilitate visually impaired travellers for different navigational purposes (local vs. distant and indoor vs. outdoor), an effective process of synchronisation is required. This synchronisation is represented through context-aware computing, which allows contextual information to not just be sensed (like most current wayfinding systems), but also adapted, discovered and augmented. In this paper, three user studies concerning the suitability of different types of navigational information for visually impaired and sighted people are described. For such systems to be effective, human cognitive maps, models and intentions need to be the focus of further research, in order to provide information that is tailored to a user's task, situation or environment. Methodologies aimed at establishing these issues need to be demonstrated through a multidisciplinary framework
AmIE: An Ambient Intelligent Environment for Assisted Living
In the modern world of technology Internet-of-things (IoT) systems strives to
provide an extensive interconnected and automated solutions for almost every
life aspect. This paper proposes an IoT context-aware system to present an
Ambient Intelligence (AmI) environment; such as an apartment, house, or a
building; to assist blind, visually-impaired, and elderly people. The proposed
system aims at providing an easy-to-utilize voice-controlled system to locate,
navigate and assist users indoors. The main purpose of the system is to provide
indoor positioning, assisted navigation, outside weather information, room
temperature, people availability, phone calls and emergency evacuation when
needed. The system enhances the user's awareness of the surrounding environment
by feeding them with relevant information through a wearable device to assist
them. In addition, the system is voice-controlled in both English and Arabic
languages and the information are displayed as audio messages in both
languages. The system design, implementation, and evaluation consider the
constraints in common types of premises in Kuwait and in challenges, such as
the training needed by the users. This paper presents cost-effective
implementation options by the adoption of a Raspberry Pi microcomputer,
Bluetooth Low Energy devices and an Android smart watch.Comment: 6 pages, 8 figures, 1 tabl
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