The Problem
Every 7 minutes someone in the United States loses their sight. According to the Research to Prevent Blindness, there are fifteen million blind and visually impaired people in the United States alone. The Braille Institute states that visual impairments affect the lives of nearly five million preschool-age children and approximately twelve million school-age children.
To put those numbers into perspective, that would mean that one in twenty children age three to five and twenty-five percent of children from the ages of six and seventeen are affected by some kind of vision problem. Only two percent among the legally blind use a guide dog and only thirty-five percent use a directional long-cane to guide them. There is a deep need for new research that can advance the technology offered to those who are challenged by mobility and navigational restrictions.
Several technology options exist to assist the visually impaired in navigating outdoors. Such technologies are often based on GPS and location-aware sensing. However, such an approach does not work indoors when the satellite signal strength is too low. If those affected by visual impairments had access to technology that could help them navigate throughout buildings to increase the perception of their surroundings, they could be assisted with common daily tasks that they encounter related to work or general activities.
