vEye (Virtual Eye). Brazil.

Project Overview

It's hard for a blind person to go somewhere they don't know, or to find objects that are lost. This doesn't mean that they aren't capable of that, but rather that the environment isn't adjusted to them. vEye provides accessibility for blind people, giving them information on the surrounding environment.

Technical Overview

The system works like an interactive map. The user speaks what he wants, the system recognizes his speech and gives him directions on the fly (via vibrating wristbands) until he reaches his objective. Microsoft Speech, GPS, Mappoint Webservice, RFID and Bluetooth are used.

Team profile on Imagine Cup Website

GeorgiaTech develops Navigation Aid for the Blind: SWAN

A SWAN to guide blind people
SWAN Home

GeorgiaTech Sonification Lab

"SWAN Architecture
The core system is a small computer--either a lightweight laptop or an even smaller handheld device--with a variety of location and orientation tracking technologies including, among others, GPS, inertial sensors, pedometer, RFID tags, RF sensors, compass, and others. Sophisticated sensor fusion is used to determine the best estimate of the user's location and which way she is facing. See the SWAN architecture figure for more details of the components. You can also find out more about the bone conduction headphones, or "bonephones" we use to present the audio interface/sounds to the user, on our Bonephones Research page.
Once the user's location and heading is determined, SWAN uses an audio-only interface (basically, a series of non-speech sounds called "beacons") to guide the listener along a path, while at the same time indicating the location of other important features in the environments "