ABSTRACT

"Bringing Blind People Downtown" is a project aimed to improve the social life of blind people.
This involves two challenges.
The first one is a technical issue: designing the devices required by the system. None of these devices is beyond the state of the art of information technology.
The second one is spreading the system. This is what I call "making talking towns". Much of the system will be made by shopkeepers wishing to attract more customers.
People who see will also appreciate large parts of the system built for blind people.
If you think that this project, that can make some million people live a better life, is worth some effort, please, don't let me fight alone, and support it.

Bringing Blind People Downtown

Quite often one can see how towns sometimes appear to people who are blind like impenetrable jungles.

One day, while I was walking downtown, I noticed something: if I encountered 20 people in a minute, then in an hour I would encounter 1200 people. Of these 1200 people - statistics says - six or seven of them should be completely blind. Also, there are ten times more people, who are not completely blind, but have serious visual impediments.

Why instead, of these people, I meet so few? Where do they spend the majority of their time?

I am an electronic designer and also, more in general, a designer in applied science, so I asked myself what I would need, if I were blind, and what could convince me to go downtown like others and have a better social life.

The result is a system which I am dedicating all my available time, and has four simple objectives:

- guide blind people on secure paths

- supply them with a better situational awareness

- help them in using public transportation

- supply them with enough information in order to make more exciting walking in one's town or visiting another

We cannot give them the sight they are lacking, but we can fill the world with sounds to an extent well beyond what is required by peoples who can see. Sounds that will be audible only by blind people, and so people passing by will not be disturbed.

These goals will be achieved with three different types of devices.

The first one is a personal device ("PD"). It has lightweight headphones that are "transparent" to ambient sounds, or some other kind of transducer, to receive information from fixed devices and a "wand" that enables the user to walk along a line painted with reflective paint.  This paint can be blended in so it will not conflict with the look of the city, because detection is made in the invisible part of the spectrum.

The second type of device is the "beacon". This is a directional infrared transmitter, transmitting multi-lingual voice messages. The user can easily determine the direction by the changes in signal strength as he turns his head. Typical beacons will be, for example, those installed on city buses and at bus stops. In this example, they will inform the user about the bus line, its destination and, possibly, about the itinerary.

The third type is the "marker". It connects to the PD through a radio link. Its range can be intentionally limited to a few meters. This enables the programmer of the local arrangement to take into account the precise position of the user. More, the user can interact with the markers with some pushbuttons on the PD, and the marker can ask the PD for various information, for example user's orientation. This way, markers can also implement interactive information points and change the delivered information according to user's orientation. For example, they will say that a certain street is on the left or on the right of the user depending on his orientation or advise him of what is ahead. Of course, markers will be multilingual too.

A combination of a beacon and a marker is the device that we will install in shop windows. The presence of many beacons around will enhance user's awareness of the environment, while the marker section will be dedicated to a more precise description of the shop and its contents. If the user stays within the marker's range for more than, say, ten seconds, the marker assumes that he wants to "see the display window", and begins describing goods, special offers etc.

This description of the system is very short. Nevertheless there are many ways this system can be put into practice, and many other ideas can be suggested if only one thinks to how much information is normally available in the streets to people who can see, and so in public buildings, malls, train stations... and so on.
If you have any question on how a real apllication works or you want to know more on some device, please contact me at:
talkingtowns@gmail.com

What this system can do for you

Very often it happens that a technology is developed for one purpose and finds its most popular application in another.

Now, imagine that you are in a town that you don't know, and in a country in which the language you don't understand.

You are in large square, shop signs and writings on buildings say nothing to you.

But those signs speak to your PD, and immediately you hear, in your language or in another that you know well, a description of the shop you are facing and of its contents. Then, you take your tablet, or wear your Goggle glasses, and you immediately see the interior of the shop, let say it is a pastry shop, you see the products, appreciate the cleanliness, know the owner and the waiters. Then, you turn your head to a museum near the shop, and you see the catalogue of the displayed pieces, see the entrance fee, the opening time, all in your language.
Even more amazing things can be done for tourists in places that are rich in historical heritage.
I stop here, but you continue in your fancy...

All this is what I call "talking towns".
Will ever talking towns exist? Much depends on how a problem concerning those who should make the first installations will be solved. If nobody wears a receiving device, it will make no sense making talking towns. If no information is available to these devices, nobody will ever wear one. It seems to be the classic egg-and-the-chicken problem.

The BBPD project can break this vicious cycle. A simple and low-cost initial implementation can start a positive cycle in which an increasing number of visually impaired visit the shops that have a transmitter installed and this, in turn, will convince other shopkeepers to install the device, and so on.

What you can do for it

Rising funds is important, of course. But the number of supporting people is important as well. Crowdfunding this project will show to politicians in local administrations that common people appreciate it, not only those who will benefit from it.

Existing devices

At present, I have only made a prototype of the "wand", with some sacrifice because I am a designer but I am not so clever in hand work. It is just a prototype, but it enabled me to test an electronic circuit and develop and test some software variants. More important than this, I can experiment with friends that are blind.

I implemented two working modes, selectable with two pushbuttons.

The first one is an "all or nothing" mode, used to follow lines painted on the ground. A sound is emitted when the beam passes on the trace. I could experiment with "adaptive thresholding" to automatically compensate for differences in ground reflectivity.

The second mode gives an analog response. It is used to inspect the surrounding environment. It allows only inspecting a small piece of the environment at a time, but very soon one learns how to build, with a few scans, a mental image of what is around that is sufficient for moving safely, finding doors, discover bends in a corridor and so on.
In practice, it can be used in place of a stick in places where a stick cannot be used. Also, it can be used to inspect things both in the horizontal and vertical direction, which I found very useful when it is used indoors.

At present, I am experimenting with different response curves that enable the device to be used in many different situations.

Next steps

The next step will be the definition of a protocol for beacons, both at the hardware and software level. It is a delicate question, the physical layer should enable different symbol rates and bit rates, in order to optimize transmission for the required distance and available optical power, while keeping the circuit simple enough so that cost and board size are kept small.

The whole project is a big one. There are many different devices that must be implemented: displays for buses, for train stations, retrofits for traffic lights bulbs, elevators... It is a project too big even for a company, if it is too small.
On the other hand, a big company would rise "technological barriers", trying to keep the project exclusive.

My idea is to develop protocols for markers and beacons, release them under a public license, and publish some basic circuits from which specialized companies (for example, a company making traffic lights or one making bus displays) can derive their systems. I hope that if a public version of a system is available most producers will adopt it, and a possible "big company" trying to impose his version would face a multitude of companies that are small but in great number.
The secret, I think, is in making the first applications in towns that are well known around the world and publicize them so that others would be encouraged to build compatible ones.
We don't want blind people travelling from Rome to Paris find an incompatible system, do we?

What I need

Presently, I am acting like a "one-man-band", one of those guys that, with a drum on their back, a trumpet, a guitar etc., play music in the streets.

Progress is slow, also because I must reserve design time also to my work, sacrificing holidays and free time is not enough. I can go on this way for some more time, but my efforts are aimed to financing a development team with other designers involved.

Putting all this in numbers, gives, more or less, the following:

If we reach the minimum target of 10000 USD, this will help me to buy some measuring instruments and some tools that can facilitate my work, that will still be that of the "one-man-band".

Above this level I can hire some consulting designer.
If we reach 60-70000 € (~ 80-90000 USD), I can set up a dedicated small company or some other kind of suitable organization, in order to carry out the project without being "the one man band" any more.

I have estimated that, at the end of the design and production set up phases, i.e. when a number of devices sufficient for a basic system will be ready for installation, an amount of 250000 to 300000 € ( ~ 350000 to 400000 US) will have been spent.
I have conceived a large series of devices, many of which should later be built by companies working in specific fields. So, a good part of the work will be for pure designs, i.e. designs made not for immediate production, but only made in order to publish basic circuits.

To make just an example, one is the marker for installation in street lights.
A marker can be built in a shape resembling a normal light bulb that can replace the original one. LED technology enables production of a large range of illuminators that can be designed in a way that does not produce big high frequency noise (if the bulbs that must be replaced are already compatible with an RF device, the shape reduces to just a socket-plug pair). Since the energy consumption of a marker is low, the device can charge a battery when the lights are on, storing enough energy not only for the following day, but also for a period of time sufficient to repair a possible fault in the light system. Making the device modular, i.e. having different illuminators that can be coupled to a basic marker and/or making the light "tunable", enable mixing the new lamps with the old ones without visible effect. 

Installing such a marker is fast and very cheap, one must only unscrew the old lamp and replace it with the marker. It is important to keep costs low, or no local administration will employ the system.

We can hope that, once some town has adopted the system, some bulb producer will take the publicized basic circuit and build a large range of products.

Spreading the system

For the system to be of any utility it is important, of course, that it is adopted by some administration.

Usually the rate of growth of a new application, especially one involving hardware, is almost proportional to the already existing systems.

From a mathematical angle this means two things:

- growth will be roughly exponential ("explosive growth"), and this is the good news

- the difficulty resides in making the first installations, because an exponential function cannot start from zero (and this is the bad news)

I look forward to having some technical aid - collaborators or consultants that I already have at hand but I cannot remunerate - so that I can dedicate myself to the management and promotion of the project.

In Italy there are some relatively small towns that are well known all over the world (in Tuscany: Pisa, Florence...) and that, if they adopt the system, can be examples for all, i.e. means of diffusion.

Spreading the system means also growing up a generation of small companies or single entrepreneurs that are skilled in guidance of blind people, in the use and installation of the required equipment and in designing an information system that is useful to the blind and the visually impaired.

If the system also finds, as I said in brief, some applications other than the original one, this will greatly stimulate the birth of such companies. A big information supplier company adopting the same, public domain, standard will automatically solve the problem for all blind people!

Making the system seems to be a big project, but it is less than proportional to the proposed goal. I believe that, if I will be successful in spreading the idea, in keeping costs small and I obtain shop owners support, then it will be done, despite the problems that I am facing now. Much of the situational awareness will be given by shop owners wishing to be "visible" to the blind and wishing to attract people. The system is scalable, local administrations will build it during time, but a considerable amount of information will be given by shop owners since the beginning.

This project is technically feasible, relatively cheap, and so it can be done.
I think that, one town after another, the project can be successful.

There are many examples, in information technology, showing that things that were first made on a small scale, later rapidly grew up to a large extent.

Who should make the system?

I asked to myself: why me? After all, this is the first guidance system for blind people I have ever been involved in, and  I can give no references. I am a single designer, I am not part of an organization and so I will face a lot of obstacles. If someone else will join the project, he or she will be very, very greatly welcome!

The answer, of course, is that, as the founder of the project, I have conceived a series of device that only need practical implementation.
But, perhaps, a better answer is that a project like this must be carried out by someone who really feels "inspired" by the task.
I could never become a good wine producer. Simply, I don't drink wine, and very unlikely I could ever have a taste for it. Only people who love wine can produce an high quality one. Differently from wine, I love the idea that, at the end of my career, the know-how that I gained during time could be useful to some less fortunate people, and that's all.

A lot of people could design a system like this. Ask any good system designer, and he will say that the system is not too hard to design.
So, one could ask: why, if making the system is so simple, it does not already exist?
The answer, I think, is in two facts.
In the first place, normal people simply ignore how many of all us are visually impaired. Second, only public or charitable institution usually care for blind people and, at the same time, blind people expect to be helped only by such institutions.
They are almost invisible to the majority of others, and this is exactly what this project wants to put a remedy to.
Single designers have a difficulty in demonstrating that a system is feasible and practical, and I am looking for my chance to build a basic system.

The key feature of the BBPD project is that it tries to put together a private interest with a social goal. People are surprised when they are told how many visually impaired exist. But if you ask a shopkeeper if he would spend a very small amount of money in order to increase his business by five or six percent, the answer is a sounding "yes!".

There is also a possibility that making things for blind people will trigger the birth of real "talking towns" for all. Frankly, I think that this will happen, beacuse when a technology already exist that is useful to everyone it is likely to be used, but I cannot take it for sure. There are not numbers, as in the case of shop owners, indicating that this is likely to happen. But there is a possibility, and in that case "talking towns" would be a gift made by visually impaired people to all others. In turn, "talking towns" would dramatically increase the number of devices supplying information for all, and so also for blind people.

It is important to keep costs for local administrations low. A real system must start with some public investment, or nobody will ever install anything in his shop.
Also, a cheap initial system could be built even with a small private funding.
Painting a line on the ground for guidance is very cheap, much less expensive than installing "tactile" tiles on sidewalks. That's why I began making the system from the "wand". The addition of a few, cheap, information points will be sufficient to "start the engine".

If you love the idea that blind people can change their habits and have a better social life, or simply you like the idea of "talking towns" and you want to do something that will help their birth, please, support this project.