A route guiding system for visually impaired persons using a hyper-directional speaker

In museums, universal designs for visitors including visually impaired persons are required. We are now developing an audio guide for visually impaired persons visiting a museum, both for hearing explanations of exhibits and for guiding his/her walking. To avoid unnecessary noises for other visitors, hyper-directional audio speakers are used. Thus, guiding audio sounds can be heard only in a small area where the target user stands. In our new system, when the target user is walking, the system rotates speaker directions for the user to continue hearing especially for route guide audio. Tracking the user's position is done by using a Kinect sensor. With our proposed system, visually impaired persons can enjoy museum tours by themselves.