Audible Route and Landmark Signs for Visually Impaired

Students of School of Behavioral and Cognitive Neurosciences, www.rug.nl/bcn/ The Netherlands, experimented with a system where people with a visual impairment used infrared landmarks to guide their way and subjects of a test felt safer and more confident using the system.

There are several infrared (IR) based systems under development to enable people with a visual impairment to hear information, to orient and find their destination independently. The students of the Dutch University simulated the system with walkie-talkies and a two-mode communication system of transceivers and beacons. The systems allows users to reach their destination with beacons that send direction information and the transceiver converts this information into audible information. The IR landmarks on destinations transmit local information like grocery stores, restrooms, or information desks.
 
The study used two groups of sixteen each and tested the system in area of a hospital including a block of elevators between five floors. Each subject walked three out of six different routes. Both groups made comparable absolute errors but subjects from the group without the system remembered the routed more clearly. Members of the group with the system reported that they felt safer than the people from the group without the system.
 
Source: Vision 2005