A smart indoor electronic guide dog for the visually impaired

Abstract

This project builds an iOS app called "Electronic Guide Dog". The app is an auxiliary tool to provide navigation service for visually impaired people (VIP). In Hong Kong, there are 174,800 VIPs but with only a limited number of guide dogs. Typically, VIPs have to memorize the route in detail by themselves, which is difficult. As a result, the desire to go out is greatly decreased. Although they can use GPS on some web map applications to navigate, the GPS signal will become unreliable once entering an indoor environment. Another method is implemented with Beacons. An example is the "In-station Finder" in Admiralty Station built by MTR, which requires nearly a thousand beacon devices installed within a single station. It needs a tremendous amount of human and material resources. Moreover, it requires the property owner to agree with the installation, which is hard to implement. Therefore, we build an iOS app that can navigate without using the GPS signal or any other external devices. The primary function is to record the entire path from one place to another place. It does so by calculating the steps walked in straight sections of the path with the accelerometer. The direction change between the two sections is measured with the compass on the iPhone. Direction changes can be with any angle. There is also a path storage function that enables recorded paths to be recalled, as well as a delete and share path function. This alleviates much the difficulty of the VIP as without this function, VIPs have to memorize complicated paths by heart. A real-time navigator with an off-route detector is also built. The off-route reminder can assist them to walk in a straight line and prevent losing the direction. A user-friendly interface with voice-over is designed as well. The VIP's test result is satisfactory, in which the direction change is precise, and the off-route detector is helpful.