Using GPS to Show the Way

Let's Get Connected!

Innovation Headlines

Innovation

Written by Annanya Nath

Sunday, 01 April 2007 00:00

Software that helps the visually disabled find out their exact location and directs them to their destination – that is exactly what a group of students at IIIT-B have developed.

Under the supervision of Prof Rajagopalan, three M.Tech (GIS) students, Swati Sundari, Prateeksha Uday and Chaitnaya T, of the International Institute of Information Technology, Bangalore (IIIT-B), are working on providing GPS-based voice services to the visually disabled. “This project is for the benefit of blind people. Using their cell phones, they can get to know where they are at a particular time, what facilities are near by, and the distances to a destination from that point,” says Prof Rajagopalan.

Known as the ‘Where Am I’ service, the application provides useful and accurate information about the current location of the user. Its inspiration came from K. Dinesh, a founder director of Infosys, when he raised a question about how technology can benefit visually disabled people who number more than a million in this country. Thus, the project took shape in September 2006. It is supported by Spatial Data (Spinfo), a company owned by Prof Rajagopalan, and Lattice Bridge Info.

How it works

The technologies involved are Global Positioning System (GPS), communication through cell phones and text-to-speech converting technologies. The visually disabled person carries a mobile phone and a matchbox-sized Bluetooth-enabled GPS device. The GPS device costs around Rs 3000 and can work with any Bluetooth-enabled mobile phone.

On keying in a number, the mobile phone reads the GPS device via Bluetooth, gets the latitude and longitude of the place and sends an SMS to a server, giving details of the caller and the latitude and longitude of the caller’s or her position. The server then identifies the location and nearby facilities. It then dials the caller, converts the data to speech, and informs the caller about the or her their current address/location and the facilities nearby. This entire sequence is completed in less than one minute.

For example, the visually impaired person can call a designated number, say 666, and ask a question such as, “Where am I?” or “Where is the nearest Citibank ATM?” and disconnect. In a few seconds, the caller will get a response or she from an automated voice, saying, 'You are in D Block, Okhla' or 'the nearest ATM is four blocks ahead. Go straight down the main road, take the first right from the circle. It's the second building on the right'.

Although this service is not only for those who have the GPS device, it works better if the user has the GPS-enabled device because then the software can ascertain the caller's location more precisely. Otherwise, it will have to use the nearest cellular towers and determine the location.

A service for everyone

''Not just the blind, even others like tourists or, for that matter, anyone can use this service. IIIT-B is developing the server application, and Lattice Bridge is designing the voice engine, which converts text messages to speech. Spinfo will provide the geographical content,'' says Prof S. Sadagopan, director, IIIT-B.

However, the real challenge lies in converting text to speech, as the GPS location information is in a text format, and accent neutrality is needed to deliver the message back to the caller. Another concern is to identify the information that is required by the caller, considering each user has a different accent, pronunciation and intonation.

With regard to providing accurate information about the location, the students involved in the project say that Spinfo already has about 8,000 key points of Bangalore marked on its geographic database – a number that is expected to double to 16,000 points in the coming days.

The road ahead

According to the group, the technology will be commercially available in the coming days as discussions with various service providers are on. The project will initially be tested in Bangalore or Chennai, and then extended to other cities. The pilot phase should be up and running in the next six months. The technology will be the joint intellectual property of IIIT-B, Spinfo and Lattice Bridge, but all rights will be assigned to IIIT-B so that it can licence the application to others at a nominal cost.

The only concern is the investment needed to set up the service. The estimated cost of developing the application, database and the server hosting charges is Rs 15-20 lakh per city. The suggestion is that visually disabled people will be provided this service free-of-cost, while others will pay a price similar to the charges now being levied for value-added services. The economics will depend on the number of users.

The next stage in the project is to make it available in all Indian languages. Presently, the callback placed by the server is in English. “Location-based services provided over cell phones are attracting the attention of users worldwide. If we can develop technologies that offer these services in Indian languages, the scope for their acceptance is large,” says Prof Rajagopalan.

Another possibility to expand the project is being visualized is the inclusion of location-based yellow page services and location-specific classified services, which will give information about shops, restaurants or places of tourist interest and could develop as strong marketing tools. Another option is a ‘friend finder,’ wherein any of the user’s friends who have subscribed to the service and are within a specified distance are notified of the user’s presence in the vicinity.

If all goes well, one can wave goodbye to the hassle of asking for directions every time one loses one’s way. In fact, getting lost couldwill become just about impossible!. Not that we are complaining!