COMPASS: IPS-based Navigation System for Visually Impaired Students

Computer Vision coupled with Positioning Systems Technology has contributed significantly in assisting visually impaired people to independently perform their daily routine tasks. This paper proposes COMPASS, an Indoor Positioning System (IPS) based solution for visually impaired students to move around the university campus independently. COMPASS is a navigation system for the visually impaired students at PMU that consists of three important components which are: an android application running on a smartphone, smart bracelet, and smart shoes. The android application is used to upload student's class schedule to help them navigate (through Bluetooth based beacons) to and from classes and around the campus. Also, it allows them to call university administrators by simply clicking on a button embedded in the mobile app. The Raspberry Pi based smart bracelet serves as a verification tool (using Tesseract enabled image detection) to ensure that the student arrives at the right class at the right time. As for the smart shoes, it ensures the safety of the student while walking around the campus by detecting obstacles (using ultrasonic sensors) along the way. COMPASS has been extensively tested in a university environment for navigating visually impaired students. COMPASS is economical, small-sized, accurate and uses open source software tools. It can be potentially used for both educational and commercial applications.