Design And Implementation Of A Secure Mobile Phonebased Route Navigator (Mguide), Adapted For The Visually Challenged People

ABSTRACT

A novel mGuide turn-by-turn Android mobile application for GPS outdoor voice navigation has been developed and presented, which is adapted for visually challenged people. The application was developed in response to the challenges of outdoor navigation by visually impaired persons. The application optimizes five map servers to give the best navigation information at any particular instance and loads map tiles very fast due to superior rendering procedures of the open street maps; loads the route statistics in the Apache SQLite database of the phone and gives turn by turn voice direction to the destination in real time. The destination points of the user are obtained in real time using open street maps and stored in the database. The user sets the preferred mode of transport to use and can record the route for offline use and has higher resolution of 0-40 meters of locating places. The application’s main page has minimum buttons for simplicity. Once the destination has been set and mode of transport chosen, then the software gives turn-by-turn voice navigation to the destination and keeps on refreshing the position of the user in real time in 10 seconds intervals. The application can be able to read inbox messages as they are received. The application gives an audio alert to the user in case of lost route and redirects the user using alternative route. The application was tested using nine totally blind students and one partially blind student from Kenyatta University who were successfully guided. In testing the performance of whole system, no sound alert between 0-10 meters from the middle of the road were heard. However, as the user deviated more than the 10 meters from the road, sound alerts were heard. The application’s response to the wrong turn from the predestined route to the time the voice alert was triggered was found to be averagely 5.23 seconds.