Development of a navigation system for the visually impaired and the substantiative experiment

It is extremely hard for the visually impaired to walk strange places because it is very difficult to know where they are and the direction to move toward the destination. In addition the existing navigation system is not easy to use for the visually impaired because it is developed for sighted people. In this paper, the pedestrian navigation system called “PullDog” for the visually impaired is developed. The high precision positioning by UHF band RFID and QZSS (Quasi-Zenith Satellite System) called Michibiki and the route search algorithms for the visually impaired are studied. The PullDog is operated just two buttons and voice recognition for easy operation. The visually impaired get the route guidance by voice from the speaker of PullDog. The result of substantiative experiments with the PullDog inside and outside a building of railway station is also reported in this paper.