Today, our science and technology have a quickly development. In the international marketplace, there are many unusual and high technology products. They usually make our life to be more convenient and easier to solve the different problem.
However, the population growth in recent years, congenital blindness and blind people with acquired blindness, that the number for them was gradually increased. The blind people always need the help from walking stick, other people or guide dog to walk on the road. But there are no enough technology products to help the blind people that more easy way to know the obstructions in front of them.
Therefore, we thought that we should design a product to help the blind people. The present is required to assist the blind people with an electronic guide system, effective and immediate way to improve their life. We need to develop a product with convenience and low cost system is very important for them.
The product should include helping them to walk on the road without barriers, to take the bus, to purchase in the supermarket, to know the pedestrian signals, to arrive at the destinations and have an emergency call etc. Also, this product is used to mark the sound output to tell users the information. The blind people use of this system, they can get the useful of guide information easier without asking the strangers on the street. These are very important for themselves.
Finally, our team design to create a new product which fulfill the almost functions – it calls “Arm Channel”. We hope that after our product come out; it will cause the universal of guide system in the world. And the product cost will become lower and lower with the developed technology. Then make the blind people can be easily and more convenience to have a better quality of their meaningful life.
1. Background
The green land in a park, the blue sky, the sightseeing of the Victoria Park, I-pad, and 3D movie all of these can give people the visual and feeling of entertainment to people who are with the health of visual. Actually, somebody who locate in darkness world, they cannot see anything. They always rely on sense of sound, touch, smell and taste to living in their narrow community.
According to the different research of the marketing information of the blindness in Hong Kong, we found out the numbers of people who are with vision disorder; analyze their necessary in the normal dairy life and their problems in Hong Kong. Furthermore, we found out some major product which applied in Hong Kong and similar product in the world to carry out the comparison which related to the dairy life of the blindness.
Nowadays, there are about 73900 people with vision disorder in Hong Kong. They always rely on sound and sense of touch to detect the object from the surroundings. Then, the almost relevant products which sell in Hong Kong cannot fully satisfy the necessary with blind people. According to the article from the America foundation for blind (living in vision disorder), they noticed that the blind people need to learn the essential skill in vision loss, which include interdentally living, communication, mobility and low vision devices to adapt their dairy life. Therefore, in this project, we decide to invent the product which helps them to adapt the normal lift easily without learning the essential skill. After the comparison, we figure out our product is more functional than the other product in Hong Kong market and the similar product in the world. Also, the cost is reasonable too.
On the other hands, our product has a large range for development and improvement area in the future. And the market potential in Hong Kong and the world is very high. The main reason is the reasonable cost and the multiple functions can satisfy the necessary of the blindness.
2. Design Specifications
For our product – Arm Channel, we hope that the functions of product including helping them walk on the road without barriers, to take the bus, to purchase in the supermarket, to know the pedestrian signals, to arrive at the destinations and have an emergency call etc. And the main purpose of these functions should be totally dependent on themselves. Therefore, our team designs the five main themes which are suitable for our ideas and shown these below.
2.1 Voice Navigation System
Build in speaker; To guide the user to the destinations; Preset a new location for user to follow.2.2 Article Identification
Build in speaker and digital camera; To compare the goods and the goods photo in database .Then tell the user of the price, expire date and the name of the products when they are buying in anywhere.2.3 Bus arrival Detection System
Build in speaker; To identifies the bus number when it arrived and then tell the user.2.4 Enquiry Service System
Build in simple machine connector box. User can connect the call center for enquiry or emergency; Download the new information to our product.2.5 Barrier Detection System
Build in speaker; To tell the user that has the barrier or not in front of them.3. Marketing Strategy
In the Hong Kong market, the government plan to carry out the improvement of the public facility community, call “disability friends’, which include blind navigation system, blind person stone and write cane etc. These products are the common product in HK market now. But these products are not enough to satisfy their necessary, because they cannot buy something, take the transportation, and tell them the real location by themselves. Therefore, we directly against with these problem, we create our product – Arm Channel.
At the below table, there are divided 3 parts, that are 1) description the blindness products in HK market, 2) state their advantage and disadvantage of the products and 3) the functional comparison with our product.
3.1) Description the blindness products in HK market
Productfunction Blind People Stone:Flooring and paving for blind people to show the direction or exit location. Blind People Mobile PhoneThe blind people mobile phone is easy to use and carry. It can save one or two phone number in its memory. It also has a SOS function key on the mobile phone. White CaneIt can help blind people to find out the Barrier in front of them Guide DogThe Guide dog can guide the blind people to the destination safety Navigate hermitHelp the blind navigate around the obstacles in their part, and thought them go to the destination using GPS RFID StickTell them the location, signal for traffic light, distance between the destination and time to achieve Guide shoeHelp the blind navigate around the obstacles in their part, and thought them go to the destination use GPS3.2) The advantage and disadvantage of each product
Productadvantagedisadvantage Blind People Stone:Its manufacture cost is not expensiveIts construction costs and period are very high and long.Also, it produces sound pollution during the implementation. Blind People Mobile PhoneIt is a good media for provide a communication method for the blind peopleIt can’t indicate the location for the user or show the destination direction to the user. White CaneConvenient to find out the BarrierIt can’t indicate the location for the user or show the destination direction to the user Guide DogSocial experience, autonomy for changing environment
Training a guide dog is too difficult and the prime cost is too high. It also has a life limited of the guide dog.
And cannot bring the dog into the bus or other transportation. Navigate hermitConvenient to find out the Barrier
Can take the user to the right location easily as a long wayCan not help the to communicate to other person easily RFID StickCan take the user to the right location easily, decrease the opportunity of traffic accident eventCan change the location voluntary
The technology is very expensive and cant take them as a long way Guide shoeEffective for outdoor navigation,
Convenient to find out the BarrierThat make the user very inconvenient when there are very rough
3.3) Functional comparison with our product
Voice navigation Article identification Bus arrival detection Barrier detection enquiry service Arm Channel Y Y Y Y Y Blind People Stone N N N Y Y Blind people mobile phone Y N N N Y White Cane N N N Y N Guide dog N N N Y N Navigate hermit Y N N Y N RFID Stick Y N N Y N Guide shoe Y N N Y N*(Y – YesN – No)
4. RFID Technology Specification
Radio frequency identification (RFID) is a technology that uses communication via radio waves to exchange data between a reader and an electronic tag attached to an object, for the purpose of identification and tracking.
RFID technology makes it possible to give each product in a grocery store its own unique identifying number. Compare that to the situation today, with bar codes, where it is only possible to identify the brand and type of package. Furthermore, RFID tags can be read if passed within close enough proximity to an RFID tag reader.
The brief differences between the Barcode technology and RFID:
Parameter Bar Code RFID Frequencies used for tag readingOptical frequenciesRadio frequencies Type of communicationLine of sight communicationNon-line of sight communication Data VolumePhysical limitation exists. It is very difficult to read a very long barcode.Can carry relatively large volume of data. Range of data readabilityVery limited range, less than feet or two.Can be read up to several feet. CostCheapExpensive, but likely to cost less as more industries adopt the technology.Benefits of RFID
Can identify moving object that have tags embedded. Can be used in different environments, including live stock, military Non-line of sight identification of tags Unaccompanied operations are possible, minimizing human errors and high cost. Larger area of coverage. Up to several feet. Automatic integration with back end software solutions provide end to end integration of data in real time RFID can be used in addition to Bar Code.5.1 Active and Passive RFID Tags:
There are primarily two types of RFID tags. One is active and the other is passive. An active tag is powered using internal battery, where a passive tag gets energized using a power from a tag reader. A passive RFID tag will not have a battery or any kind of power source by itself. It extracts the required energy from a reader. Hence, a passive RFID tag reader must be able to emit stronger electromagnetic signals, and in return, identify very weak signals from the passive RFID tag.
The primary differences between a Passive and Active RFID tags
Passive RFIDActive RFID Power SourceExternal (Reader provided)Internal (Battery) Tag ReadabilityOnly within the area covered by the reader, typically up to 3 meters.Can provide signals over an extended range, typically up to 100 meters.. EnergizeA passive tag is energized only when there is a reader present.An active tag is always energized. Magnetic Field StrengthHigh, since the tag draws power from the electromagnetic field provided by the reader.Low, since the tag emits signals using internal battery source. Shelf LifeVery high, ideally does not expire over a life time.Limited to about 5 years, the life of a battery. Data storageLimited data storage, typically 128 bytes.Can store larger amounts of data. CostCheapExpensive SizeSmallerSlightly bulky (due to battery)5.2 Operation of RFID Systems
Various components of the tag are as shown. Normally, the antenna is external to the tag chip, and large in size
The operation of the RFID tag is described belo
The reader continuously emits Radio Frequency carrier signals, and keeps observing the received RF signals for data. The existence of tag (passive tag) modulates the RF field, and the same is detected by the reader. The passive tag absorbs a small portion of the energy emitted by the reader, and starts sending modulated data when sufficient energy is acquired from the RF field produce by the reader. Note that the data modulation (modulation for 0s and 1s) is accomplished by either direct modulation or FSK or Phase modulation. The reader demodulates the signals received from the tag antenna, and decodes the same for further processing.6. Methodology
First, there is the introduction of the software and hardware devices that we used in our product.
Software:
1)Labview
2)Labview Vision module
3)MySQL Database
4)MS speech SDK5.1
5)AT command
Hardware:
6.1 Hardware communication Diagram:
6.2 The part of Enquiry Service System:
Enquiry service system includes emergency SMS and call center service function. We used the LabView to build up the software which is used to control the mobile phone to send the emergency SMS or make a call to call center. The communication protocol is used Bluetooth to build a connection between the UMPC and Mobile phone. Nowadays, there is the standard control command for mobile phone which is call ‘AT command’. Therefore, we can use the AT command to control the mobile phone to send the SMS or make a call.
Flow chart of Enquiry Service System:
6.3 The part of Article Identification:
The Article identification is used to identify the product function. The program that we used Labview Vision module will through the video camera to capture the real time video input. Then, it will load the article templates from our database and identify which template was matched to the input article video. According to the result, the program will read the article name through the ear phone to tell the user.
6.4 Article Identification Flow chart:
6.5 Voice Navigation System & Bus Arrival Detection System
Since, we installed the RFID tags in each locations and the bus. The user can through the LabView program and the RFID tags to analyze the location and the bus. First, the program will make the decoding and filtering when the RFID reader received the tags signal. Next, it will identify the location name or bus number by the tag ID from MySQL database. Moreover, it will use the MS speech SDK functions to do voice prompt. The user can through the ear phone to listen the location name or bus number.
6.6 Voice Navigation System & Bus Arrival Detection System Flow chart:
7. Cash Flow Forecast
Cost planning service
Cost and benefit
Proposed Budget Plan PARTICULARSUNITCOST PER UNITTOTAL COST box1 $10 $10 AI switch2 $10 $20 UM PC1 $5,000 $5,000 RFID Receiver1 $300 $300 RFID8 $10 $80 Part A $5,410 ExpendituresUNITCOST PER UNITTOTAL COST Banner1 $350 $350 Catalogs20 $5 $100 Bag1 $200 $200 Headphone1 $50 $50 Miscellaneous$500 $500 Part B $1,200 PM & Maintenance feeUNITCOST PER UNITTOTAL COST PM Cost1 5% of PartA $270 Maintenance Fee1 10% of PartA+PartB $660 PartC $930 Total Cost( A+B+C ) : $7,540 Proposed Benefits Plan PlanA PlanB PlanC Months/Plan price$138 $248 $398 12 $1,656 $2,976 $4,776 24 $3,312 $5,952 $9,552 Months/Product price$8,000 $7,500 $7,000 12 $9,656 $10,476 $11,776 24 $11,312 $13,452 $16,552 Net Benefits(Total Benefits – Product Cost ) Months/ Plan TypePlanA PlanB PlanC 12 $2,116 $2,936 $4,236 24 $3,772 $5,912 $9,012 Proposed Virtual Expenditures Virtual ExpendituresUNIT Time COST PER UNIT COST Team member time8 members2hrs(extra work)+3 hrs x 8 lessons $100 $20,800 Consultation time$150 Workshop time$150 Total $20,8008. Advantage of our product
AdvantageIn this section, there are divided as two parts, which are research result and comparison result with other product. In the research result, it is shown how many people with seeing difficulty and blind in Hong Kong, America and in the world. In the comparison result with other product, it is shown the different between our product and the other product in the world.
Research result
(Key points)
In Hong Kong, about 73 900 persons were with seeing difficulty, 6 500 people of them are blind, according to research of Hong Kong Cerise and Statistic Department. In 2000. In America, about 10.5 million persons were with seeing difficulty; 10.5 million people of them are blind, according to research of America community survey in 2008. In America, about 15 million persons were with seeing difficulty, according to research of Prevent Blindness of in 2009. About 314 million persons were with seeing difficulty; 45 million people of them are blind, 87% are living in Developing Country, according to research of Would Health Organization. In May 2009.Observation:
The marketing is not only Hong Kong, this is avoidable globally. the result is shown the trendy is increasing Our product should be user friendly and the cost need to reasonable.Comparison result with other product
In the functional test, which refer to the page 6 (comparison with other product). Our product can carry out the basic function, such as barrier detection and voice navigation. But when we have the enquire service, which is the most important function, because most of the people need to take the mobile phone for communication every day. Our product has provided the basic and important function; the article indemnification and bus arrival function are the specific functions.
9. Project Lifecycles
We identify the project lifecycles with four phases:
The first phase in the project lifecycle is Project Initiation. We define the project purpose, scope and the justification for initiating it. We also need to find a suitably project team before the project planning phase.
In the product lifecycle, the curial part is project planning which is a guideline for the team during the project.
Throughout the project, groups of management take a role to monitor and control the deliverable being output throughout the project, such as quality control, time and risk management etc. The project can be performed the closure once all the deliverables has been produced.
Project closure includes releasing the final deliverables to the customers, assess and review to identify the level of project success and note any recommendation for future project
10. Project Planning
This is our project planning at semester 1
This is our project planning at semester 2
ConclusionTechnology has been being developed very fast in recent years; people get many advantages form the technology, people get more comfort to their life, what is that technologySuch as following:
1)Mobile phone makes people faster and easier to communication.
2)Video conferencing make people no need to by car, by plane for seeing his / her family and friends, we just need a computer with a web camera.
3)Internet makes people get information just in few seconds.
4)GPS makes people easier to go to anywhere; no matter you are driving or walking.
But why some people cannot get these advantages from the technologyThose people around the world, they live at any place of the world. Who is that peopleSuch as blinders!
What is the goal in our projectWhy we use technology to help blinders. We want blinders live comfortable, easier and go anywhere as they want!
From the beginning of the project, one of two kind of technology may be choose, one is GPS and another one is RFID. Why we have not choice GPSDue to GPS cannot be used inside a building, when a blinder inside a building, GPS cannot guide him / her to the destination.
Therefore we choice RFID for our project! RFID is rising technology, RFID has some advantages such as more accurate, installed inside buildings, some other technologies will be incorporated in our project such as Bluetooth, camera for thing identification.
What is the RFID used in our projectWe use RFID to build and guiding system which can guide the blinders easily to go to anywhere by himself or herself!
When the blinder want to go to somewhere, he / her can make a call to customer center to tell them where you want to go! They can know nowhere you are from the guiding system and they transmit the routing from the customer center to your guiding system to guide you to the destination!
Bluetooth is use for communication between the guiding system, hands free headset and mobile phone, you can make a call to customer center by press a button, when the connection between you and customer center, you can talk to customer center by the hands free headset. If you want to make a SOS call to the customer center, you can press the SOS button to make an emergency to customer center, the customer center can know where you are by the guiding system, and then customer center call people to help you, meanwhile when you pressed the SOS button, it will automatically send SMS to your family for notice them you are in trouble! They can know where you are from the customer center.
Camera is used to identify things or products, when you activate the camera identification function; the camera will let you know what the thing which is in front of youThis function can makes blinder shopping easier.
What are difficulties in our project?
When the subject of our project was decided, we had to decided how many functions the guiding system shall equippedSome functions had been decided should be include in the guiding system such as following:
1) Voice navigation
2)Article identification
3) Bus arrival detection system
4) Enquiry service system
5)Barrier detection system
First difficulty thing is that how big is our productHow we can minimize the size of the productFinally we decided minimize the size of the product is not our first priority, how to make the product must be placed in first priority, therefore minimize the size of the product will be placed at the last priority.
Second difficulty thing is that the detection range is too large, we want the detection range between 0.5 meter and 1 meter, therefore the accuracy will be increased and how we can shorten the detection range of the RFID systemWe decided to use some metal enclosure to enclose the RFID reader to reduce the output power of the reader, so the detection range of the RFID reader can be reduced.
Third difficulty thing is what software can be used for the announcement and speaking systemFrom our review and research, we found a software, we can modify it for speaking many sentences, it can be used to tell the user information.
How the identify a thing or product and tell the user what is itWe used another software to do it, this software can scan a photo which is taken by the camera in the system to compare with the building database, when the software find a match data, it will let the user know what is the thing or product he is facing.
We are individually testing each component into project, some function such as BUS ARRIVAL and BARRIER DETECTION are still pending and waiting us to incorporate into the guiding system after we complete one system other system will be incorporated into the guiding system one by one. When all functions are tested, we will start to combine them to a whole system.
In this project we act different characters in a company, such as following:
1)Managing director
2)Secretary
3)Finance
4) Project planning and control
5) Design
6) Quality control
7) Engineer
8)Sales and marketing
We have not try to run a project in Role Playing mode before, we were facing many challenges in this project, such as very tight progress, we do our best to face that challenge, at the end of this trimester, we produced a prototype guiding system, it can work, but it is not working perfect, due to the guiding system is under development, we will try to make it as good as possible at incoming trimester.
Finally we hope we can act any character better in the project and we will complete the project at incoming trimester.
