Wayfinding Information Access System for People With Vision Loss

The greatest mobility problems for people with severe visual impairment are caused by gaps
in available information about the environment -- environmental cues needed for orienting to
salient landmarks in the surrounding environment and for wayfinding. Such informational cues
are of great import because persons with severe visual impairment can become hopelessly lost
if they cannot keep track of where they are at any given moment as they move along.

A newly developed long-range Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tag reader might
completely solve this problem. Previously, passive (i.e., not battery powered) RFID tags
could only be read from a distance of 16 inches or less. This new tag reader can read
multiple tags up to 18 feet away, and indicate the direction and range of each tag. At a
cost of under 10 each, 250 RFID tags would have to be placed around an environment to equal
the cost of 1 Braille sign ($25), yet the value-added in terms of available information at a
distance is incredible: every object (landmark, door, water fountain, exit sign, chair,
table, etc.) within a range of 18 feet would be able to "announce" its presence.

Visible signage equivalency could be achieved overnight. Further, Interface, Inc., a
commercial floor manufacturer is now adhering RFID tags to the protected underside their
50X50 cm floor tiles. Using such flooring and the new long-range readers, a very elegant and
affordable indoor GPS-like guidance system can be realized through triangulation of these
RFID floor tiles. In the long run, as this RFID flooring infrastructure fills in, the most
ideal solution could result, as it would enable the development of easily-managed building
databases containing everything users would need to know to orient to new buildings and find
their way around with ease. Users would never be lost, as they would always know their
current location and heading. In addition, such a building database would be much easier to
maintain, as opposed to updating individual RFID tags, when building tenants move or
renovations take place. Interface is very interested in supporting our research, and is
donating 2500 square feet of their RFID flooring to the VA for this purpose.

The Research Questions to be answered by the herein proposed research are:

1. How should environmental information be organized and parsed according to actual needs
so that persons can be provided with needed information without inundating them with
useless and/or distracting information in the process?

2. How should a user interface be structured to offer needed information in an easily
controlled and useable fashion?

To address these Questions, the following Research Objectives have been established:

1. Determine what kinds of information are needed according to (a) a characterization of
individual needs, O&M abilities, and degree of useful residual vision;

2. Develop a structured database of information parsed and organized according to
information associated with specific participant characterization clusters as
associated with individual needs, residual vision, etc.;

3. Develop an optimal user interface for the control and delivery of needed information
adaptable to the individual needs of the participants;

4. Develop an RFID reader antenna that can triangulate RFID tags in flooring to determine
the user's current location and heading, as well as identify the information and
location of other tags of interest on objects in the surround; and

5. Construct and Evaluate a prototype system as specified by the results of the above
objectives.

Inclusion Criteria:

- Must be blind with no better vision than light perception and must be able to do 3
hours of walking (with many breaks)

Exclusion Criteria:

- N/A