• Journal of rehabilitation welfare engineering & assistive technology
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.7-11
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• 2007

A compass device which indicates the right direction using the recorded voice was developed to assist the people who are blind when they are walking and moving to somewhere. The developed voice compass consists of a sensing module which recognizes the terrestrial magnetism with magnetic sensor, voice recorder IC, speaker and microprocessor which controlled all the components. It has 32 directions resolution and can continuously indicates the progressing direction with established time interval for the user convenience. It can help walking of the blind people and designed to be used in various sports and leisure. The performance of the developed device was verified by experiment with person who are blind.

• Spatial Information Research
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.83-93
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• 2012

Recent environmental concerns have made interest in environment-friendly transportation means such as walking, biking, and public transportation. However, since it is difficult to move long distance by walking or biking, their scope of application is rather limited. On the other hand, public transportation can solve traffic congestion, a recent social issue, though its usability may depend on its time schedule. Currently available information services on public transportation in the Web do not reflect well such traits of the public transportation; thus, in some cases, they may provide wrong information to end users. To solve such problems and provide information based on timetable of public transportations, this paper proposes a STP(Space Time Point) data model. Unlike existing space-time data models, this model recognizes the bottommost element of an object as a point and structures these points in hierarchical way to define an object. In particular, It can make it possible to implement a variety of dynamic spatial objects changing object information according to time. An objective of this study is to design a STP model for bus and subway based on timetables of public transportation in Daejeon area and builds a system to provide path navigation. With the designed navigation function, a path from the Daejeon National Cemetery to Hannam University was searched by time slot. The result showed that the system provided different paths by time, as the system guided different paths when bus operation was limited in midnight. As existing data model could not provide such results, it is confirmed that the system can provide path navigation based on real-time traffic information. It is expected that based on such functionality, it is possible to provide additional functionalities by applying diverse data models such as real-time transport information or traffic history information.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2005.06a
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• pp.888-891
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• 2005

In this paper, the prototype of a walking guide robot with tactile display is introduced, and the psychophysical experiment of the tactile recognition for a tactile display is carried out and analyzed. The objective of this research is the development of a walking guide robot for the blind to walk safely. A walking guide robot consists of a guide vehicle and a tactile display device. A guide vehicle, located in the front of the walking blind, detects the obstacle using ultrasonic sensors and offers the information of position and walking direction acquired from GPS module to the walking blind by voice. The tactile display device, located in the handle which is connected with the guide vehicle by cane, offers the processed obstacle information such as position, size, moving, shape of obstacle and safe path, etc. The psychophysical experiments for the threshold of perception and recognition ability of tactile stimulation are carried out by the estimation of the subject group. As a result the appropriate tactile stimulus intensity and frequency to recognize tactile stimulation effectively are discussed and derived.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea CI
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• v.47 no.6
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• pp.124-130
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• 2010

Current traffic guidance system offers the information of traffic light using a speaker to everybody including the blinds without object certification. Therefore, the current system gives stress by noisy sound to normal person. It is difficult for the blind to hear informations such as location, current traffic sign light status, and weather information, because of the vehicle noise and surroundings noise. If the blind or sight disabled person who has the RFID tag or has a white stick with RFID tag approaches to street crossing, RFID reader recognizes the tag and it serves necessary information through speaker or bluetooth. And also it is possible for the blind to use less expensive one with RFID tag than the white stick with RFID Reader.

• Journal of the Institute of Convergence Signal Processing
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.15-21
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• 2015

In this paper, a behavior notification system of the harness of a guide dog is implemented for a blind person to get helps for environmental and situational awareness while walking with the guide dog. IMU modules is attached on the guide dog's harness saddle and the acceleration sensor belt is mounted on its thigh. Gait estimation and behavior judgement are performed by recording and analyzing the outputs of the sensors. Performance analysis for seven different kinds of behaviors has been done. The seven different behaviors, which the guide dog recognizes, are descending stairs, climbing stairs, uphill, downhill, stop, flat road, and selective disobedience. Results for the performance analysis show that the average success rate of the behavior rule estimation of harness of the guide dog is 92.78% and the behavior notification system can be effectively used in real situations.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
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• 2019.05a
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• pp.49-52
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• 2019

Braille guide block of sidewalk is an essential facility for independent walking of the blind. The blind walks while checking the braile guide blocks with white cane and sense of sole. When they leave the braile area, they face difficulties until they find the braile guide blocks again. In this paper, we propose an algorithm that guides the walking of the blind by determining whether they follows the braille guide blocks safely. For this purpose, the slope of the braille block is selected as a feature and a 3-line detector is introduced. Also the slopes are stabilized using spatial filtering to deal with breaks or junctions of the braille block during the progress and temporal filtering to cope with ego-motion of the blind. Through simulations using a dataset obtained from the real sidewalks and indoors, it can be shown that the proposed algorithm can successfully estimate the walking direction and determine whether the blind is out of the braille guide block area.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.28 no.1D
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• pp.21-27
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• 2008

To respond to years-long economic decline in the downtown Seoul, it is necessary to lay out a scheme revitalizing downtown economy. It is called Wanavi and Shonavi system. When customers do shopping, it is the "Shonavi" that provides shopping information such as popular shop name, location, and commodity price to walkers in a real-time base. In addition, the walking navigation system called "Wanavi" is designed to provide access information for walking shoppers, the function of which is similar to car navigation system. The "Wanavi" can help walkers find the fastest, comfortable and attractive pedestrian route and public transportation information reaching to the destination in the downtown. In this study, we propose GPA & RFID mixed system as a communication technique to activate "Shonavi" and "Wanavi" system. The "Shonavi" and "Wanavi" system will be one of the ways to revitalize depressed downtown economy in Seoul.

• Journal of Digital Contents Society
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.109-114
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• 2017

In our modern society, the utilization of the advanced drone which is capable of performing variety of tasks has been gradually increasing. In this paper, we present an application, similar to the prototype "Skycall" that had been introduced in the MIT Senseable City. To assess this concept, we have implemented a prototype of drone-based pedestrian navigation depending on the Android smartphone. Our system is not only able to guide the user in a very complicated place, where buildings are compacted, but also to block unauthorized visitors from accessing the facilities. And we discuss some problems we found and suggest the direction to address them.

• Journal of Korea Port Economic Association
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• v.37 no.3
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• pp.93-104
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• 2021

A coastal ferries, which serve as a mode between mainland and offshore islands, are frequently used by islanders and travelers visiting islands. Therefore, it is located in a place with good accessibility to the downtown so that users can use it conveniently. However, research on the built environment and walking environment of coastal ferry terminals has not been conducted to ensure that elderly islanders and general travelers can use comfortably the coastal ferry terminal. In this study, with a focus on the coastal ferry terminal space, the walking section was set as 1)the accessibility of the coastal ferry terminal, 2)the built environment for using the coastal ferry terminal, and 3)walking environment in the ferry boarding and disembarkation at the coastal ferry terminal, and 4, 5)walking environment in the ferry. An evaluation tool was developed to measure the walking environment for each walking section, and the importance and satisfaction of users were analyzed using the IPA for the Yeosu Coastal Ferry Terminal. As a result, in the process of approaching the ferry terminal, 'convenience of using public transportation by foot' and 'convenience of using signposts guiding the location and direction of the ferry terminal' were investigated as concentrated areas. On the other hand, the built environment inside the ferry terminal and the walking environment showed that the satisfaction of the users was high. Regarding the walking environment from the ferry terminal to the ferry, the 'surface walking environment of the walking path', 'convenience of walking with luggage', 'convenience of walking in the slope section', and 'convenience of walking in the ferry ramp section' showed low satisfaction. This study can be used as basic data for improving the facilities and walking environment of Yeosu Coastal Ferry Terminal and is expected to be used as data for comparative research with other coastal ferry terminals.

• Journal of Korea Society of Industrial Information Systems
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.31-38
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• 2020

In this paper, we compare and analyze smart technologies and present six obstacle detection features to help visually impaired people walk. Traditionally, visually impaired people walk with the white cane or a guide dog. With the development of IoT technology, various smart walking aids systems have been developed. Those intelligent walking aids systems have obstacle-detecting systems and route-guidance systems. Many researchers are developing the walking aids system, which detects an obstacle and provides the obstacle information by haptic feedback. Also, they are designing the database server system to share the obstacle information. Particularly the composed system can quickly give an obstacle-avoidance route using shared obstacle information. Smart walking aids systems for visually impaired people will advance more rapidly by applying machine learning and intelligent systems.