Design and Implementation of a Voice Based Navigation for Visually Impaired Persons

As our society farther expands, there has been many supports for second-class citizens, disabled. One of many supports that is urgent is the guarantee of mobility for blind people. There has been many efforts but even now, it is not easy for blind people to independently move. In this paper, it constructs and materializes the navigation system for blind people in order to provide precise location information, using Android base Smart Phone. The navigation system uses TTS(Text-to-Speech) for blindness in order to provide a navigation service through voice. Also, it uses Google Map API to apply map information. Suggested system, as an independent program, is fairly cheap and it is possible to install onto Smart phone held by blind people. This allows blind people to easy excess the program. This application tested its performance through Galaxy Player YP-GB1 based on Android 2.2. As the result, the voice support about map information has progressed favorably.