AmIE: An Ambient Intelligent Environment for Blind and Visually Impaired People

Marwa Kandil*, Fatemah AlAttar, Reem Al-Baghdadi, Issam Damaj

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterpeer-review

3 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The Internet of things (IoT) is a revolutionary technology that is rapidly changing our world. IoT systems are becoming essential in modern life; traditional devices are becoming ubiquitous, connected, wireless, and smart. The aim of this investigation is to develop an IoT context-aware system that creates an Ambient Intelligence environment; in an apartment, house, or a building; to assist blind, visually-impaired, and elderly people. The main challenges that the system addresses include supporting assisted navigation, communication, security, and safe-living at an affordable cost. The proposed solution aims at providing effective indoor navigation, an easy-to-deploy system, a multilingual user-friendly interface and supports speech instructions. The proposed system is supported by sensors, communication nodes, control processors, wireless Internet access, a smart watch, to name but a few. The chapter includes studying the effectiveness of adding Bluetooth low energy devices at doors, stairs, walls, exit signs, service rooms, and more to enable accurate navigation. In addition, an investigation is included on the training needed by the users as related to the adoption of such a modern tool. System testing includes multiple navigation scenarios, accuracies, reliability of interactions, and the effectiveness of the multilingual features. System testing, analysis, and evaluation confirm the effectiveness of the developed system in application.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationEAI/Springer Innovations in Communication and Computing
PublisherSpringer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH
Pages207-236
Number of pages30
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2 Jul 2019
Externally publishedYes

Publication series

NameEAI/Springer Innovations in Communication and Computing
ISSN (Print)2522-8595
ISSN (Electronic)2522-8609

Keywords

  • Ambient intelligence
  • Assisted living
  • Blind and visually impaired
  • Context-aware systems
  • Indoor navigation
  • Internet of things

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