Accessible GPS: Reorientation and Target Location among users with Visual Impairments

Abstract

The recent explosion in the use of global positioning satellite technology has significantly increased people's ability to maintain place orientation and to store and retrieve information about specific locations, such as businesses, recreational facilities, and geographic attributes (Broida, 2004; El-Rabbany, 2002). Rather than relying on the floating bubblelike compass that once sat on the dashboard and gave a rough estimate of the direction of travel, when a person prepares for a trip to grandmother's house in 2007, he or she now may use a Global Positioning System (GPS) unit that can plan a route to grandmother's house, keep the user on route while traveling there, continually update how much farther

Uncovering information needs for independent spatial learning for users who are visually impaired

“…Such systems provide in situ navigation instructions enabling faster navigation [25] with fewer halts [16]. A number of different systems have been explored, with most of them based on GPS technology, to present navigation and wayfinding information to the user.…”

Virtual Guide Dog: Next-generation pedestrian signal for the visually impaired

“…The visually impaired is more vulnerable to collision, especially when crossing an intersection, due to insufficient information concerning traffic, walk phase, and intersection geometry. 7 A seemingly effortless crossing at intersection for sighted pedestrians has been proven considerably difficult for the visually impaired. The subtasks involving in crossing a street can be broken down to 1) detecting the existence of an intersection, 2) determining the street or direction (heading) to cross, 3) locating the crosswalk, 4) aligning the heading with the destination, and 5) maintaining a straight path during crossing within a crosswalk.…”

Topography analysis using wearable devices and its integration in navigation systems

“…MOBIC dialogue system introduces multi-tiered directions that provide progressively more detailed information about a scene [9]. Recent work has found that visually impaired individuals using navigation devices travel to new areas faster [4] and with less errors and halts [5] than using Physical maps or direct experience. Sendero [6] uses smart phone's location sensing power.…”