Personal Assistant for Visually Impaired People: RFID System for the Blind

Filed in archive Implementation on June 26, 2008

Being a visually handicapped person can certainly make one's life difficult when compared to a healthy human being. If you consider the scene around the world then the facilities are pretty grim when seen from the viewpoint of handicapped people.

But it looks that the scenario is expected to change in Europe where authorities are looking towards improving the facilities for visually handicapped people. Keeping this vision in mind Swiss public transport agency is coming up with an RFID based system which would enable visually challenged people to check transit information at stops and destination of passing buses so that they don't board the wrong bus.

The system is named as Personal Assistant for Visually Impaired People or PAVIP and pilots are being conducted on seventy buses equipped with active UHF RFID modules for receiving and transmitting data. The system deploys Bones Milestone which is a small handheld device comprising of UHF RFID transceiver, HF RFID reader, digital voice recorder and audio player and can play MP3 and other digital formats. All a person needs to do is wave the device in front of a sign printed with timetable of the bus and it would read aloud the relevant information for your benefit.

This RFID system would surely make the lives of visually challenged people a lot easier and save them from any kind of botheration while using the public transport system. This is just the start and the future looks pretty good as of now.