Cyber Crumbs: Indoor Orientation and Wayfinding Cyber Crumbs: An Indoor Orientation and Wayfinding Infrastructure

An infrastructure comprised of prototype Cyber Crumbs was developed and evaluated in an NIH SBIR Phase 1 study. The goal was to develop a means of “salting” indoor structures with a network of inexpensive information “crumbs” to assist persons in easily orientating to indoor structures and efficiently navigating through them to desired locations. Infra-Red (IR) communications between Crumbs and a User Badge provide a channel for obtaining information. A low-profile bone-conduction headset provides voiced output of information. Seventeen visually impaired participants tested this system and showed significant improvements in navigation efficiency as compared with the performance of ten sighted participants. Performance measures included time and distance to reach specific locations.