University of Coimbra develops Intelligent Guide to Support … – News of Coimbra

A team of researchers from the Faculty of Science and Technology, University of Coimbra (FCTUC) developed an Intelligent Guide to guide blind people in indoor public buildings.

This guide, which aims to increase the autonomy of blind people in their daily activities, was developed in collaboration with ACAPO – Association of Blind and Partially Sighted Portugal. In practice, it is a Smartphone application designed to help, quick, intuitive and secure way, users find desired inside public buildings andmaterials services.

From the phone, the system “SmartGuia: Shopping Assistant for Blind People” (https://eden.dei.uc.pt/~jcecilio/videos/SmartGuia_Compressed.mp4) uses the Bluetooth and Wi-Fi technologies to “guide the blind to its goal, responding questions and providing clear information about places, products and services that are in the building. The guide is triggered by the user, and from there, constantly updated information, establishing routes and distances indicates, describes the surrounding environment (eg, how far away from the elevator or stairs), identifies points of interest, etc. ” explains the project coordinator, José Cecilio

One of the most distinctive features of the system is suasimplicidade:. «simplifies the user’s work in terms of specification you want. The user can simply say words that identify what you want (such as eat, buy clothes). The system can recognize these keywords, then asking about more specific preferences, such as to indicate that there are restaurants to outilizador then say what you want. Once complete the process of choosing a destination, the system guides the blind orally to the desired site ‘, exemplifies the investigator.

Although it was developed to guide blind people, this system has recently received awards Fraunhofer Portugal, aims to extend the use to any citizen. The goal is “to get into the shopping center, the client can know which shops are on sale that day, in which products and what percentage discount. In this sense, we implement a pilot umprojeto commercial center of Coimbra, “he concludes.