A RFID SYSTEM TO HELP VISUALLY IMPAIRED PEOPLE IN MOBILITY

Abstract

Orientation and mobility for visually impaired people are very difficult, especially in environments unknown or not designed with assistive purposes. In modern Welfare States, for guaranteeing autonomous living and social inclusion of blind and partially sighted people, independent mobility is an important objective to achieve. In this paper a novel ICT system, namely RadioVirgilio/Sesamonet, relying on RFID technologies to support indoor/outdoor navigation of visual disabled is introduced. RadioVirgilio/Sesamonet has been developed with the intent of giving users a non-intrusive, usable and safe way to move in urban environments. The authors approach integrating traditional assistive technologies with wireless and RFID technologies to realize an intelligent and easy to use navigation system – is described, along with the functionalities and the physical and logical architecture of the system. A brief discussion on planned application scenarios, results from a preliminary usability tests, and ongoing effort to extend the system complete the contribution. KeywordsBlind mobility, RFID navigation system