Si-Jung Kim's Home, www.sjlab.com

NaFEAS device is used to provide navigation information as a user with severe visual impairments or who is in need of self-directed positioning in a physical space with objects that cannot be sensed by the legs or arms due to paraplegia or partial quadriplegia (has been tested with these groups). This device also supports object recognition to support work and collaboration within a human-physical system.

NaFEAS is a garment-based wearable assistive technology that integrates sensors, a database, and multi-modal user interfaces into a garment providing a user with an severe visual impairment (SVI) with the awareness of environmental landmarks that consists of primary and secondary environmental cues. NaFEAS consists of a Wi-Fi positioning engine and a RFID system that jointly collects all relevant real-time environmental contexts within the category of the near and far environment (e.g., object information, number of people and their names, today's weather and schedules). Once the EUI collects all environmental contexts, the main computer compares the collected information to pre-saved wayfinding information in an internal database and provides the feedback in the form of environmental cues to the user for his or her activities through a multi-modal user interface. The types of user feedback are determined according to the type of information that needs to be conveyed.

This project was funded by NSF (National Science Foundation; PI: Dr. Tonya Smith-Jackson). A patent has been submitted to the US Patent Office via Virginia Tech Intellectual Properties and two journal papers have been accepted to the International Journal of Universal Access in the Information Society (UAIS) and International Journal of Gerontechnology.