{"72767":{"#nid":"72767","#data":{"type":"news","title":"SWAN System to Help Blind Navigate Environment","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EImagine being blind and trying to find your way around a city you\u0027ve never visited before - that can be challenging for a sighted person. Georgia Tech researchers are developing a wearable computing system called the System for Wearable Audio Navigation (SWAN) designed to help the visually impaired, firefighters, soldiers and others navigate their way in unknown territory, particularly when vision is obstructed or impaired.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThe SWAN system, consisting of a small laptop, a proprietary tracking chip, and bone-conduction headphones, provides audio cues to guide the person from place to place, with or without vision.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022We are excited by the possibilities for people who are blind and visually impaired to use the SWAN auditory wayfinding system,\u0022 said Susan B. Green, executive director, Center for the Visually Impaired in Atlanta. \u0022Consumer involvement is crucial in the design and evaluation of successful assistive technology, so CVI is happy to collaborate with Georgia Tech to provide volunteers who are blind and visually impaired for focus groups, interviews and evaluation of the system.\u0022\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ECollaboration\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nIn an unusual collaboration, Frank Dellaert, assistant professor in the Georgia Tech College of Computing and Bruce Walker, assistant professor in Georgia Tech\u0027s School of Psychology and College of Computing, met five years ago at new faculty orientation and discussed how their respective areas of expertise - determining location of robots and audio interfaces - were complimentary and could be married in a project to assist the blind. The project progressed slowly as the researchers worked on it as time allowed and sought funding. Early support came through a seed grant from the Graphics, Visualization and Usability (GVU) Center at Georgia Tech, and recently Walker and Dellaert received a $600,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to further develop SWAN.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EDellaert\u0027s artificial intelligence research focuses on tracking and determining the location of robots and developing applications to help robots determine where they are and where they need to go. There are similar challenges when it comes to tracking and guiding robots and people. Dellaert\u0027s robotics research usually focuses on military applications since that is where most of the funding is available.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022SWAN is a satisfying project because we are looking at how to use technology originally developed for military use for peaceful purposes,\u0022 says Dellaert. \u0022Currently, we can effectively localize the person outdoors with GPS data, and we have a working prototype using computer vision to see street level details not included in GPS, such as light posts and benches. The challenge is integrating all the information from all the various sensors in real time so you can accurately guide the user as they move toward their destination.\u0022 \u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EWalker\u0027s expertise in human computer interaction and interface design includes developing auditory displays that indicate data through sonification or sound. \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022By using a modular approach in building a system useful for the visually impaired, we can easily add new sensing technologies, while also making it flexible enough for firefighters and soldiers to use in low visibility situations,\u0022 says Walker. \u0022One of our challenges has been designing sound beacons easily understood by the user but that are not annoying or in competition with other sounds they need to hear such as traffic noise.\u0022\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ESWAN System Overview\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe current SWAN prototype consists of a small laptop computer worn in a backpack, a tracking chip, additional sensors including GPS (global positioning system), a digital compass, a head tracker, four cameras and light sensor, and special headphones called bone phones. The researchers selected bone phones because they send auditory signals via vibrations through the skull without plugging the user\u0027s ears, an especially important feature for the blind who rely heavily on their hearing.  The sensors and tracking chip worn on the head send data to the SWAN applications on the laptop which computes the user\u0027s location and in what direction he is looking, maps the travel route, then sends 3-D audio cues to the bone phones to guide the traveler along a path to the destination. \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThe 3-D cues sound like they are coming from about 1 meter away from the user\u0027s body, in whichever direction the user needs to travel. The 3-D audio, a well-established sound effect, is created by taking advantage of humans\u0027 natural ability to detect inter-aural time differences. The 3-D sound application schedules sounds to reach one ear slightly faster than the other, and the human brain uses that timing difference to figure out where the sound originated. \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThe 3-D audio beacons for navigation are unique to SWAN. Other navigation systems use speech cues such as \u0027walk 100 yards and turn left,\u0027 which Walker feels is not user friendly.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022SWAN consists of two types of auditory displays - navigational beacons where the SWAN user walks directly toward the sound, and secondary sounds indicating nearby items of possible interests such as doors, benches and so forth,\u0022 says Walker. \u0022We have learned that sound design matters. We have spent a lot of time researching which sounds are more effective, such as a beep or a sound burst, and which sounds provide information but do not interrupt users when they talk on their cell phone or listen to music.\u0022\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThe researchers have also learned that SWAN would supplement other techniques that a blind person might already use for getting around such as using a cane to identify obstructions in the path or a guide dog. \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ENext Steps\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe researchers\u0027 next step is to transition SWAN from outdoors-only to indoor-outdoor use. Since GPS does not work indoors, the computer vision system is being refined to bridge that gap. Also, the research team is currently revamping the SWAN applications to run on PDAs and cell phones, which will be more convenient and comfortable for users. The team plans to add an annotation feature so that a user can add other useful annotations to share with other users such as nearby coffee shops, a location of a puddle after recent rains, and perhaps even the location of a park in the distance.  There are plans to commercialize the SWAN technology after further refinement, testing and miniaturizing of components for the consumer market.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":[{"value":"System Integrates Robotic Technology and Auditory Signals"}],"field_summary":[{"value":"Georgia Tech researchers are developing a wearable computing system called the System for Wearable Audio Navigation designed to help the visually impaired, firefighters and soldiers navigate their way in unknown territory.","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Auditory wayfinding system guides users with sound"}],"uid":"27301","created_gmt":"2006-08-14 00:00:00","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:01:42","author":"Elizabeth Campell","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2006-08-15T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2006-08-15T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"72768":{"id":"72768","type":"image","title":"Graduate student demos SWAN","body":null,"created":"1449177954","gmt_created":"2015-12-03 21:25:54","changed":"1475894663","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:44:23"},"72769":{"id":"72769","type":"image","title":"Researchers discuss SWAN system","body":null,"created":"1449177954","gmt_created":"2015-12-03 21:25:54","changed":"1475894663","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:44:23"},"72770":{"id":"72770","type":"image","title":"Frank Dellaert","body":null,"created":"1449177954","gmt_created":"2015-12-03 21:25:54","changed":"1475894663","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:44:23"}},"media_ids":["72768","72769","72770"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.cviatlanta.org\/","title":"Center for Visually Impaired"},{"url":"http:\/\/www-static.cc.gatech.edu\/~dellaert\/","title":"Dellaert Faculty Page"},{"url":"http:\/\/sonify.psych.gatech.edu\/~walkerb\/","title":"Walker Faculty Page"},{"url":"http:\/\/sonify.psych.gatech.edu\/research\/swan\/index.html","title":"SWAN Project"}],"groups":[{"id":"1214","name":"News Room"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cstrong\u003ELisa Grovenstein\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ECommunications \u0026amp; Marketing\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.gatech.edu\/contact\/index.html?id=lgrovenste3\u0022\u003EContact Lisa Grovenstein\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E404-894-8835\u003C\/strong\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["lisa.grovenstein@comm.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}