Skip to main content
Add as a preferred source on Google


Carnegie Mellon and IBM Intro Open Platform To Help Blind Navigate

  • By Dian Schaffhauser
  • 11/05/15

A research project at Carnegie Mellon University is helping blind people navigate with the use of an iPhone app that directs them based on information picked up from nearby sensors. NavCog, which is expected to be made available in the iTunes Store soon, draws on Bluetooth beacons and cognitive technologies to inform users on campus about their surroundings by talking to them through the phone or vibrating. The user enters the destination, turns on voice navigation, follows directions and will be notified when he or she arrives.

A separate function under development performs facial recognition to help the user identify who is approaching, friends or strangers, and what kinds of expressions they're showing. The researchers are also investigating the use of computer vision to characterize the activities of people in the vicinity and ultrasonic technology to help identify locations more accurately inside and outside of buildings.
A separate function under development performs facial recognition to help the user identify who is approaching, friends or strangers, and what kinds of expressions they're showing.

The app is built on the Human-Scale Localization Platform (HULOP), an open source initiative introduced jointly by Carnegie Mellon and IBM as an environment upon which to build applications specifically for people who are visually impaired.

"To gain further independence and help improve the quality of life, ubiquitous connectivity across indoor and outdoor environments is necessary," said IBM Fellow Chieko Asakawa, a visiting faculty member at Carnegie Mellon who is blind herself. "I'm excited that this open platform will help accelerate the advancement of cognitive assistance research by giving developers opportunities to build various accessibility applications and test non-traditional technologies such as ultrasonic and advanced inertial sensors to assist navigation."

Asakawa's research is supported with an award from IBM's Open Collaborative Research program.

A video demonstrating the technology is available on YouTube.

About the Author

Dian Schaffhauser is a former senior contributing editor for 1105 Media's education publications THE Journal, Campus Technology and Spaces4Learning.

Featured

  • large group of college students sitting on an academic quad

    Student Readiness: Learning to Learn

    Melissa Loble, Instructure's chief academic officer, recommends a focus on 'readiness' as a broader concept as we try to understand how to build meaningful education experiences that can form a bridge from the university to the workplace. Here, we ask Loble what readiness is and how to offer students the ability to 'learn to learn'.

  • Wireless network and connection abstract data background with wifi symbol

    Georgetown Partners with Cisco on Large WiFi 7 Rollout

    Georgetown University is working with Cisco on a multi-year network revamp that will implement WiFi 7 across the institution's classrooms, dorms, stadiums, and beyond.  

  • college students sitting with laptops at an outdoor table

    How Colleges Are Building More Connected and Responsive Student Support

    Colleges are making steady progress in building more connected and responsive student support systems. By aligning services and improving coordination, institutions are enhancing both the student and staff experience.

  • Santa Clara University School of Engineering

    "Engineering and the Good Life" at Santa Clara University

    An ethics across the curriculum program at Santa Clara University's School of Engineering supports ethical reflection in engineering design and encourages each student to consider what it means to them to be an engineer.