International Journal on Smart Sensing and Intelligent Systems, 2020
Nowadays public buildings are changing constantly, often people have to take different routes to ... more Nowadays public buildings are changing constantly, often people have to take different routes to reach known destinations. At the same time, new services and places are made available to attract more people to the shopping center. This dynamic environment is usually signalled and labelled with visual marks and signs which are not appropriated for blind persons. Therefore, blind users are unintentionally deprived of a full participation in the society. With the purpose of equalize the access to services and spaces among all persons, this work proposes an innovative indoor navigation and information system for public buildings, namely shopping centers, based on existing technologies not used for this purpose. Intending to allow a comfortable and helpful aid on blind persons trips to the shopping center, this proposal system relies on users smartphone and wireless sensors deployed in the environment.
Indoor navigation technologies rely on accurately determining the position of a moving person or ... more Indoor navigation technologies rely on accurately determining the position of a moving person or robot to guide her actively through the building. This cannot be done using GPS because it is indoors. We have been dealing with this problem in the context of designing and building a system for helping blind people navigate in public buildings. However, indoor localization based on RSSI is not very accurate, since the quality of the signal is influenced by many factors that include, for instance, wall reflections or people passing by. The fact that the person is moving also introduces several degrees of uncertainty, including a changing number and placement of beacons in-range. The challenge is therefore to develop mechanisms to handle uncertainty. In this paper we propose and evaluate uncertainty-handling mechanisms.
Lecture Notes of the Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering, 2015
This work intends to provide an assistive technology that helps blind persons to independently na... more This work intends to provide an assistive technology that helps blind persons to independently navigate inside public spaces. Blind persons often travel through known routes as they already know some features of it. Our technology helps users to travel through unknown spaces and find products or services available there. It is supported by personal smartphones running Android OS and beacons deployed in the space.
Among the activities affected by visual impairment, navigation plays a fundamental role, since it... more Among the activities affected by visual impairment, navigation plays a fundamental role, since it enables the person to independently move in safety. The heterogeneous environment, easily perceived by visually enabled people, is hardly known by partially sighted people. A challenging task for these people is independent navigation in new spaces/buildings/environments. The environment is usually signaled and labeled with visual marks and signs which are not appropriate for blind persons. With the purpose of balancing the access to services and spaces among all persons, this work proposes an innovative navigation and information system to help the navigation of blind people within new environments (e.g. shopping center, public office building). Based on smartphones and wireless sensors deployed in the environment, we propose an information tracking system for realtime guide blind people (BlindeDroid). It offers guided navigation, answering questions, and providing objective information about places, products and services that are available surrounding the user.
2014 13th International Conference on Control Automation Robotics & Vision (ICARCV), 2014
One of the major driving forces behind technology development is the establishment of equality am... more One of the major driving forces behind technology development is the establishment of equality among everyone. It is intended that the strategic use of technology complements competencies or diminished capacities, improving self confidence and autonomy. Blind and partially sighted people often deal with this inequality in the performance of tasks or daily activities. The presented work reviews some of the proposed technologies to assist visually impaired people in common activities, specifically navigation and going shopping.
Esta cópia da tese é fornecida na condição de que quem a consulta reconhece que os direitos de au... more Esta cópia da tese é fornecida na condição de que quem a consulta reconhece que os direitos de autor são pertença do autor da tese e que nenhuma citação ou informação obtida a partir dela pode ser publicada sem a referência apropriada. This copy of the thesis has been supplied on condition that anyone who consults it is understood to recognize that its copyright rests with its author and that no quotation from the thesis and no information derived from it may be published without proper acknowledgement. This work was conducted under the guidance of Professors Pedro Furtado and Jorge Sá Silva, to whom I must express my sincere appreciation for the constant presence and support, which the present work reflects. I extend to them my grateful admiration. By competence, passionate and tireless support, I thank Dr. José Cecílio for the frequent and enriching exchange of ideas that offered me throughout this thesis. To my colleagues in the research group where this work was developed, Elis Regina, Joana Alves and José Alves, my sincere gratitude for the support and companionship that enriched the evolution of this work. A special recognition I would like to address, in Portuguese, to my family and boyfriend. Pelo vosso perseverante e carinhoso apoio, compreensão e disponibilidade, o meu mais verdadeiro agradecimento. Além do presente trabalho, tenho o coração grato pelo agradável e incomparável amparo que sempre foram. viii
International Journal on Smart Sensing and Intelligent Systems, 2020
Nowadays public buildings are changing constantly, often people have to take different routes to ... more Nowadays public buildings are changing constantly, often people have to take different routes to reach known destinations. At the same time, new services and places are made available to attract more people to the shopping center. This dynamic environment is usually signalled and labelled with visual marks and signs which are not appropriated for blind persons. Therefore, blind users are unintentionally deprived of a full participation in the society. With the purpose of equalize the access to services and spaces among all persons, this work proposes an innovative indoor navigation and information system for public buildings, namely shopping centers, based on existing technologies not used for this purpose. Intending to allow a comfortable and helpful aid on blind persons trips to the shopping center, this proposal system relies on users smartphone and wireless sensors deployed in the environment.
Indoor navigation technologies rely on accurately determining the position of a moving person or ... more Indoor navigation technologies rely on accurately determining the position of a moving person or robot to guide her actively through the building. This cannot be done using GPS because it is indoors. We have been dealing with this problem in the context of designing and building a system for helping blind people navigate in public buildings. However, indoor localization based on RSSI is not very accurate, since the quality of the signal is influenced by many factors that include, for instance, wall reflections or people passing by. The fact that the person is moving also introduces several degrees of uncertainty, including a changing number and placement of beacons in-range. The challenge is therefore to develop mechanisms to handle uncertainty. In this paper we propose and evaluate uncertainty-handling mechanisms.
Lecture Notes of the Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering, 2015
This work intends to provide an assistive technology that helps blind persons to independently na... more This work intends to provide an assistive technology that helps blind persons to independently navigate inside public spaces. Blind persons often travel through known routes as they already know some features of it. Our technology helps users to travel through unknown spaces and find products or services available there. It is supported by personal smartphones running Android OS and beacons deployed in the space.
Among the activities affected by visual impairment, navigation plays a fundamental role, since it... more Among the activities affected by visual impairment, navigation plays a fundamental role, since it enables the person to independently move in safety. The heterogeneous environment, easily perceived by visually enabled people, is hardly known by partially sighted people. A challenging task for these people is independent navigation in new spaces/buildings/environments. The environment is usually signaled and labeled with visual marks and signs which are not appropriate for blind persons. With the purpose of balancing the access to services and spaces among all persons, this work proposes an innovative navigation and information system to help the navigation of blind people within new environments (e.g. shopping center, public office building). Based on smartphones and wireless sensors deployed in the environment, we propose an information tracking system for realtime guide blind people (BlindeDroid). It offers guided navigation, answering questions, and providing objective information about places, products and services that are available surrounding the user.
2014 13th International Conference on Control Automation Robotics & Vision (ICARCV), 2014
One of the major driving forces behind technology development is the establishment of equality am... more One of the major driving forces behind technology development is the establishment of equality among everyone. It is intended that the strategic use of technology complements competencies or diminished capacities, improving self confidence and autonomy. Blind and partially sighted people often deal with this inequality in the performance of tasks or daily activities. The presented work reviews some of the proposed technologies to assist visually impaired people in common activities, specifically navigation and going shopping.
Esta cópia da tese é fornecida na condição de que quem a consulta reconhece que os direitos de au... more Esta cópia da tese é fornecida na condição de que quem a consulta reconhece que os direitos de autor são pertença do autor da tese e que nenhuma citação ou informação obtida a partir dela pode ser publicada sem a referência apropriada. This copy of the thesis has been supplied on condition that anyone who consults it is understood to recognize that its copyright rests with its author and that no quotation from the thesis and no information derived from it may be published without proper acknowledgement. This work was conducted under the guidance of Professors Pedro Furtado and Jorge Sá Silva, to whom I must express my sincere appreciation for the constant presence and support, which the present work reflects. I extend to them my grateful admiration. By competence, passionate and tireless support, I thank Dr. José Cecílio for the frequent and enriching exchange of ideas that offered me throughout this thesis. To my colleagues in the research group where this work was developed, Elis Regina, Joana Alves and José Alves, my sincere gratitude for the support and companionship that enriched the evolution of this work. A special recognition I would like to address, in Portuguese, to my family and boyfriend. Pelo vosso perseverante e carinhoso apoio, compreensão e disponibilidade, o meu mais verdadeiro agradecimento. Além do presente trabalho, tenho o coração grato pelo agradável e incomparável amparo que sempre foram. viii
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