COOL BLIND TECH - Tuesday, October 30, 2018 at 1:46 PM
Consortium Develops GPS App for the Visually Impaired
Navigating a busy airport or bus terminal can be a challenging proposition for
anyone who is blind or visually impaired. Enter ASSIST, an app for indoor
navigation in development by a City College of New York-led consortium. The
ASSIST app is part of the SAT-Hub project, which has received a boost from a
$750,000 three-year grant from the Partnerships for Innovation (PFI)
Program<https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1827505> at the
National Science Foundation.<https://www.nsf.gov/>
This brings to $850,000 the NSF’s support for the app’s development. Last year,
the foundation awarded City College a $100,000 Smart & Connected Community
(SCC) planning grant.
In addition, Bentley Systems, Inc., a software development
company<https://www.bentley.com/en> and the primary industrial partner on the
SAT-Hub project, is providing an additional $75,000 over three years in
industrial support.
SAT-Hub stands for “Smart and Accessible Transportation Hub”. The acronym for
“Assistive Sensor Solutions for Independent and Safe Travel,” ASSIST will
provide GPS-type assistance to users ranging from the blind or visually
impaired to autistic and disabled people.
“It will help them navigate large public transportation hubs such as airports
and bus stations which can be very complicated for the visually impaired or
autistic,” said Zhigang Zhu, Herbert G. Kayser Chair Professor of Computer
Science at City College and the project leader.
According to Zhu, ASSIST will help users find the best path to avoid foot
traffic, tell them where they are and how to get to their destination.
The primary research is being done in CCNY’s Grove School of
Engineering,<https://www.ccny.cuny.edu/engineering> where Zhu, who also teaches
at The Graduate Center, CUNY, directs City College’s Visual Computing
Laboratory. CCNY students, both graduate and undergraduate, are engaged in the
research.
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CCNY’s major research partners include Rutgers University which carries out
research in building modeling and transportation management, and the
not-for-profit Lighthouse Guild, dedicated to reducing the burdens of vision
loss and to improving the quality of life for those with reduced vision.
The SAT-Hub project started with a Summer Research Team project led by Zhu at
Rutgers’ DHS Command, Control and Interoperability Center for Advanced Data
Analysis. Lighthouse Guild joined the team for testing the app with users.
The Borough of Manhattan Community College, Goodwill, New Jersey Passaic
County, New Jersey Transit, the New York City Mayor’s Office for People with
Disabilities, New York City Regional Innovation Node at CUNY and the New York
State Commission for the Blind are some of the other partners.
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David Goldfield
Assistive Technology Specialist
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WWW.DavidGoldfield.info<http://WWW.DavidGoldfield.info>
