Guiding System for Visually Impaired Running on a Track

Abstract

Sighted people can enjoy many social activities that the visually impaired are denied. Our project has the major goal to develop a guidance system: A real-time locating system (RTLS) based on radio signals guides runners with the highest level of safety by estimating the angle of arrival (AoA) and round-trip time (RTT). First results show the position accuracy of the proposed locating system with real-world data with a deviation of less than one metre. Thus we provide an enormous freedom for the visually impaired runners compared to the other solutions: Blind and sighted runners will have the opportunity to do sport together without another person’s assistance.

Appendix

1.1 SME Participants

INFOALAP-Informatics for the Visually Impaired Foundation - Hungary. INFOALAP is actively involved in system specifications, based on its experience with IT for visually impaired, and supports the technology optimization by providing direct evaluation feedback for. They also support hardware and software development by the evaluation of ergonomic aspects by its low vision IT engineers, as well as being active in system tests.

PPS GmbH - Germany. PPS is the supplier of the technology that is capable of real-time detection of the running people in the running track. It closely cooperates with Fraunhofer Institute IIS during the research period and supplies the prototype of the project. PPS defines the prototype in regard of later products and assists the development partners in defining the real use cases as well as the general evaluation of the developments.

ELITAC - Netherlands. Besides supervising, ELITAC’s role comes at the phase of tactile belt research and manufacturing. They strongly cooperate with IBV while they are working on the development of the tactile belt. ELITAC has already developed tactile devices but none of them was for the blind.

Eneso Tecnología de Adaptación S.L. - Spain. ENESO is a distributor of BLINDTRACK system. They have a deep knowledge of the accessibility market in Spain, so they will be very active in promoting and placing the system. They will also contribute their experience by testing and validating the product.

ADAPTOR HJELPEMIDLER as - Norway. ADAPTOR plays a significant role in the consortium as the employer of visually impaired and distributor of assistive products and provides the research partners with tangible information on the needs of the market and assist field testing.

1.2 RTD Participants

ATEKNEA Solutions Hungary Kft. - Hungary. Ateknea Solutions brings together four research and innovation companies operating at a European level for over 15 years. The group pools the expertise and know-how of more than 130 professionals working in five different locations: Barcelona, Brussels, Budapest, Krakow and Valetta. The innovative companies have successfully participated in more than 150 different projects financed by the European Commission. ATEKNEA is the coordinator of the project and responsible to ensure fluent project flow.

Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS - Germany. The Institute has a first prototype research result, called RedFIR® know-how and experience that is a state-of-the-art wireless tracking technology that locates people and objects in real time and with high precision. Its main role is to select the best fitting localization technology for a successful project. Compared to current video-based approaches, this radio-based technology offers a major advantage: its tracking capability is not diminished by obstacles obscuring the line of sight. The RedFIR® real-time tracking system is more responsive, accurate and flexible than any comparable technology. Position data is made available in fractions of a second and automatically analysed using pattern recognition and event detection methods. User-specific data preparation and visualization modes are provided in real time. It has an accuracy of a few centimetres, making event detection results and automatically generated statistics highly reliable. In the consortium Fraunhofer will develop a system based on RedFIR® but fulfilling the special needs of visually impaired people and find out a solution that is still affordable and marketable with not forgetting the basic need: maximum accuracy with minimum price.

IBV - Biomechanics Institute of Valencia - Spain. IBV do research to understand the tactile sensing and the perception mechanism in different conditions. Measurements are taken to define the sensitivity of the skin from the density and the intensity point of view as well. They aim to find the optimal sensing positions on the perimeter of the trunk to feel directions with confidence and define the number of the vibrating elements on the belt, and their control to guide a person to the direction we intend to. They have to cooperate closely with Elitac in order to manufacture a defined number of prototypes for testing. A continuous cooperation with the control and communication circuit designer RTD during the control circuit development is also essential.

1.3 Other

Budapesti Sportszolgáltató Központ - Hungary. During the project preparation and implementation Budapesti Sportszolgáltató Központ help with practical advices of blind running behaviour and critical points of their secure training. In the testing phase it will make the field available and will actively take part in the validation and dissemination.