VIGILANT: Smart Phone Navigation for Visually Impaired pedestrians

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VIGILANTSmart Phone Navigation for Visually
Impaired pedestrians

• Name Affiliation
• Anani Afanou ECE4007 L02
• Arpan Ghosh
• Daniel Newsome Date
• Ken Orji March 9, 2009

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Overview

• What?
• Pedestrian turn-by-turn navigation using a
  Google G1 mobile phone
• Who/Why?
• Current navigation solutions for the visually
  impaired are cumbersome
• Cost?
• Software package and subscription for 49.99/yr.

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Technical Goals

• Receive differential GPS corrections
• Remove noise using Kalman Filtering
• Provide turn by turn navigational instructions
• Dynamically updated
• Pinpoint navigation destination
• Within 1 meter accuracy
• Supply user-friendly interface
• Audio-based

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Product Image
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Design Approach

• DGPS Base Station
• Accepts connections and transmits corrections
  values over LAWN
• G1 Smart Phone
• Connects to DGPS server and receives corrections
  (WLAN)
• Send corrections to receiver and gets back
  corrected user position (Bluetooth)

• GPS Receiver (with user)
• Calculates users position from satellite(s)
• Applies DGPS corrections to calculated position

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Smart Phone Interface

• G1 Smart Phone (UI)
• Scrollable list of bldgs. _at_ Tech
• Google Maps - directions in real time.
• Current user location to bldg. selected in list
• Audio feedback of directions and list selections
• Kalman filtering removes noise.

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Calculating Correction of Satellite
Calculating User Position from Satellite
DGPS Corrections
User Position with Noise Removed
lt DGPS Corr. gt User Position
User Position from Receiver
Kalman Filter
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Demo Description

• Place Gatech Campus
• Option1
• Blindfolded team member navigates with VIGILANT.
• Option2
• Visually impaired volunteer navigates with
  VIGILANT

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Potential Problem(s)

• Problem
• Some devices might not be Bluetooth compatible.
• Resolution
• Use hard wire instead (serial port).

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Milestones

• Bluetooth/wireless connection of G1 to DGPS
  system

• Map interface on the G1 completed.
• Kalman filter code for Android completed.

• User Interface
• Text to speech/audio UI
• First complete application testing

• Finish all testing
• Ready for demo

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Budget/Cost Analysis

• Main cost is labor
• 10,500 Four engineers design/build the product
  for 300 hours at 35/hr.
• Other costs
• T-Mobile G1 phone priced at 179.99 with
  contract, 399.99 without a contract. (Not
  included in total cost)
• Marketing
• VIGILANT product can be sold, as software
  package, for a fee of 49.99
• Cheaper than the 1,649 price of competitors like
  the Sendero GPS System.

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Current Status

• Received the HTC G1 phone from Google.
• Confirmed that DGPS base station is up and
  running.
• The team is currently
• Working with DGPS base station to test GPS
  Receiver.
• Researching a way to implement Kalman filtering
  accurately on Matlab.
• Working on code to seamlessly implement text to
  speech together with Google Maps on the G1 phone