THE NAVBELT - A COMPUTERIZED TRAVEL AID FOR THE BLIND BASED ON MOBILEROBOTICS TECHNOLOGY

This paper presents a new concept for a travel aid for the blind. A pr ototype device, called the NavBelt, mas developed to test this concept , The device can be used as a primary or secondary aid, and consists o f a portable computer, ultrasonic sensors, and stereophonic headphones . The computer applies navigation and obstacle avoidance technologies that mere developed originally for mobile robots. The computer then us es a stereophonic imaging technique to process the signals from the ul trasonic sensors and relays their information to the user via stereoph onic headphones. The user can interpret the information as an acoustic ''picture'' of the surroundings, or, depending on the operational mod e, as the recommended travel direction. The acoustic signals are trans mitted as discrete beeps or continuous sounds. Experimental results wi th the NavBelt simulator and a portable prototype show that users can travel safely in an unfamiliar and cluttered environment at speeds of up to 0.8 m/s.