Article

Universal real-time navigational assistance (URNA): an urban bluetooth beacon for the blind

Authors:

R. ManduchiAuthors Info & Claims

HealthNet '07: Proceedings of the 1st ACM SIGMOBILE international workshop on Systems and networking support for healthcare and assisted living environments

Pages 83 - 88

https://doi.org/10.1145/1248054.1248080

Published: 11 June 2007 Publication History

Abstract

We describe a complete hardware/software system, dubbed Universal Real-Time Navigational Assistance (URNA), which enables communication of relevant location-aware information to a blind person carrying a Bluetooth-enabled cell phone. Although URNA can be used for a number of different applications (e.g., an information kiosk at a shopping mall or public transit information at a bus stop), we concentrate on the challenging case of an urban intersection. Information provided to the user as he or she approaches the intersection includes a description of the intersection topology and real-time notification of the state of the traffic lights. The main FPGA-based control board (NavCon) interfaces with a traffic controller and with the Bluetooth modules, which are each mounted atop the intersection's pedestrian heads (pedheads) - the lights signaling a pedestrian when to "WALK" or "DON'T WALK". The cell phone software (PedNav), written in Java 2 Micro Edition (J2ME), uses Text-To-Speech (TTS) for presenting the information transmitted by NavCon to the blind user.

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Cited By

Kim J(2025)Multi-sensory Feedback-assisted Low-cost Smart Walking Cane Forming a Wearable Assembly for Blind PeopleJOURNAL OF SENSOR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY10.46670/JSST.2025.34.1.2734:1(27-36)Online publication date: 31-Jan-2025
https://doi.org/10.46670/JSST.2025.34.1.27
Yang ATamkittikhun NHamilton-Fletcher GRamdhanie VVu TBeheshti MHudson TVedanthan RRiewpaiboon WMongkolwat PFeng CRizzo J(2024)Evaluating the efficacy of UNav: A computer vision-based navigation aid for persons with blindness or low visionAssistive Technology10.1080/10400435.2024.2382113(1-15)Online publication date: 13-Aug-2024
https://doi.org/10.1080/10400435.2024.2382113
Tiwari ATripathi RBhatia D(2022)Advancements in Data Security and Privacy Techniques Used in IoT-Based Hospital ApplicationsResearch Anthology on Securing Medical Systems and Records10.4018/978-1-6684-6311-6.ch030(662-684)Online publication date: 3-Jun-2022
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Index Terms

Universal real-time navigational assistance (URNA): an urban bluetooth beacon for the blind
1. Applied computing

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cover image ACM Conferences

HealthNet '07: Proceedings of the 1st ACM SIGMOBILE international workshop on Systems and networking support for healthcare and assisted living environments

June 2007

110 pages

ISBN:9781595937674

DOI:10.1145/1248054

General Chairs:
Robin Kravets
University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign, USA
,
Chiara Petrioli
Università degli Studi di Roma 'La Sapienza', Italy

Copyright © 2007 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Published: 11 June 2007

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Mobisys07: The Fifth International Conference on Mobile Systems, Applications, and Services

June 11, 2007

San Juan, Puerto Rico

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Cited By

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https://doi.org/10.46670/JSST.2025.34.1.27
Yang ATamkittikhun NHamilton-Fletcher GRamdhanie VVu TBeheshti MHudson TVedanthan RRiewpaiboon WMongkolwat PFeng CRizzo J(2024)Evaluating the efficacy of UNav: A computer vision-based navigation aid for persons with blindness or low visionAssistive Technology10.1080/10400435.2024.2382113(1-15)Online publication date: 13-Aug-2024
https://doi.org/10.1080/10400435.2024.2382113
Tiwari ATripathi RBhatia D(2022)Advancements in Data Security and Privacy Techniques Used in IoT-Based Hospital ApplicationsResearch Anthology on Securing Medical Systems and Records10.4018/978-1-6684-6311-6.ch030(662-684)Online publication date: 3-Jun-2022
https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-6684-6311-6.ch030
Altaf IKaul A(2021)Vulnerable road user safety: A systematic review and mesh‐networking based vehicle ad hoc system using hybrid of neuro‐fuzzy and genetic algorithmsInternational Journal of Communication Systems10.1002/dac.490734:13Online publication date: 7-Jul-2021
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Nair VOlmschenk GSeiple WZhu Z(2020)ASSIST: Evaluating the usability and performance of an indoor navigation assistant for blind and visually impaired peopleAssistive Technology10.1080/10400435.2020.180955334:3(289-299)Online publication date: 2-Sep-2020
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