MNDWSN for Helping People with Different Disabilities

This paper introduces a monitoring and navigation system to help people with disabilities ( MND WSN ). The proposed system is based on wireless sensor networks. In the MND WSN system, each disabled person uses a handheld smart phone device. Three types of disabilities are studied in this paper: (1) blind, (2) deaf, and (3) on wheelchair. We experimented with a three-floor university building. Sensor nodes and cameras are scattered in all rooms and hallways. Smart phones are used to communicate with the sensor nodes to take instructions to navigate through the appropriate path. Dijkstra's algorithm is used for navigation. MND WSN also monitors the disabled person while navigating. The proposed system is compared to a baseline reference experiment. Results show improvement of 34% compared to the baseline reference experiment.

[1]  Steven E. Stock,et al.  Evaluation of a GPS-Based System for Supporting Independent Use of Public Transportation by Adults With Intellectual Disability , 2013 .

[2]  Gerhard Fischer,et al.  Socio-technical environments supporting people with cognitive disabilities using public transportation , 2005, TCHI.

[3]  Álvaro Marco,et al.  Location-based services for elderly and disabled people , 2008, Comput. Commun..

[4]  José Alberto Fonseca,et al.  B-Live - A Home Automation System for Disabled and Elderly People , 2007, 2007 International Symposium on Industrial Embedded Systems.

[5]  Chih-Ping Chu,et al.  A RSSI-based algorithm for indoor localization using ZigBee in wireless sensor network , 2009, DMS 2009.

[6]  Gangbing Song,et al.  Sensing Methodologies and Sensor Networks for Health Monitoring of Civil Infrastructures , 2012, Int. J. Distributed Sens. Networks.

[7]  Dongkyoo Shin,et al.  Research and implementation of the context-aware middleware for controlling home appliances , 2005, 2005 Digest of Technical Papers. International Conference on Consumer Electronics, 2005. ICCE..

[8]  Yao-Jen Chang,et al.  A context aware handheld wayfinding system for individuals with cognitive impairments , 2008, Assets '08.

[9]  Maarouf Saad,et al.  A Novel Approach for Mobile Robot Navigation with Dynamic Obstacles Avoidance , 2005, J. Intell. Robotic Syst..

[10]  Tom Chau,et al.  A flexible routing scheme for patients with topographical disorientation , 2007, Journal of NeuroEngineering and Rehabilitation.

[11]  Fernando Díaz del Río,et al.  A real-time wireless sensor network for wheelchair navigation , 2009, 2009 IEEE/ACS International Conference on Computer Systems and Applications.

[12]  Jean-Marie Moureaux,et al.  Performances of multi-hops image transmissions on IEEE 802.15.4 Wireless Sensor Networks for surveillance applications , 2013, 2013 IEEE 9th International Conference on Wireless and Mobile Computing, Networking and Communications (WiMob).