VIRTUAL WALKING STICK FOR THE VISUALLY IMPAIRED
First Claim
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1. A navigational aid for the visually impaired, comprisinga location sensor capable of providing the current geographic location of the navigational aid including altitude;
- an inertial measurement unit;
a computer processor;
a database containing map data;
a non-volatile memory; and
a user interface, wherein the map data comprises geographic location information pertaining to a region in which the navigational aid will be used, wherein the map data further comprises information on a structure of one or more objects within the region, and wherein the location sensor and the inertial measurement unit are used to compute a location and an orientation of the navigational aid in three-dimensional space, and wherein the navigational aid uses the location and orientation, along with the map data, to provide navigational instructions and angle-dependent directives to a user to locate objects along a travel path.
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Abstract
A navigational aid for use primarily by the visually impaired in the form of a virtual walking stick, comprising a location sensor and an inertial measurement unit, which can provide angle-dependent navigation directions to a user, and which can be used to record the three-dimensional locations of new objects of interest for later uploading and integration into a global map set of the region.
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Citations
4 Claims
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1. A navigational aid for the visually impaired, comprising
a location sensor capable of providing the current geographic location of the navigational aid including altitude; -
an inertial measurement unit; a computer processor; a database containing map data; a non-volatile memory; and a user interface, wherein the map data comprises geographic location information pertaining to a region in which the navigational aid will be used, wherein the map data further comprises information on a structure of one or more objects within the region, and wherein the location sensor and the inertial measurement unit are used to compute a location and an orientation of the navigational aid in three-dimensional space, and wherein the navigational aid uses the location and orientation, along with the map data, to provide navigational instructions and angle-dependent directives to a user to locate objects along a travel path. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3)
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4. A method of updating a map database comprising the steps of traversing a path with a navigational aid capable of recording absolute geographic location and altitude data, collecting location and altitude data about one or more objects of interest along the path in a non-volatile memory device connected to the navigational aid, uploading the collected location and altitude data from the non-volatile memory device to a central server, integrating the uploaded location and altitude data into existing map database, and downloading the updated map database information into one or more navigational aids for future use.
Specification