A mixed inertial and rf-id orientation tool for the visually impaired

The possibility to provide visual impaired walking in an unfamiliar environment with an optimized degree of information about the presence of services and hazards is of primary importance to improve their autonomy and self estimate. In this paper, a mixed inertial and RF-ID orientation aid for the visually impaired is proposed to assist visually impaired people exploring an unfamiliar environment. The system developed aims to notify the presence of services and hazards. Main advantages of the system developed, as respect to the State of the Art, are the continuous monitoring of users position in the environment, the optimized redundancy of information to be provided to the user, the high re-configurability and flexibility, the poor demanding installation and maintenance, the low cost and the adaptive level of assistance to be provided to the user on the basis of his/her needs, ability and skills. ©2009 IEEE.