Navigating in any strange environment is a challenge. But what if you had to do it without the use of your eyes?

John Miller has been blind since age 3. “For obvious reasons,” says Miller, a former researcher at UCSD’s CAL-(IT)2, “navigation has long fascinated me. My parents encouraged me early on to learn to use a cane to get about.” When Miller became an Eagle Scout in his teens, their emphasis on orienteering—finding one’s way around foreign terrain with a map and a compass—fascinated him.

Miller has now translated that fascination into helping the visually impaired. Along with Cal-(IT)2 research associate Paul Blair, he has taken the first important steps in developing a new navigational system.

That system is based on GPS and a portable digital assistant device (PDA) or cell phone. If the person is using the cell phone as the navigation aid, she calls a central server and says where she wants to go. The server then responds with verbal instructions telling her which direction to take and how far to go. As the user starts on her journey, the server uses GPS coordinate data from the PDA to locate her. She can then verify directions by pressing a button and engaging a speaking compass.

If the user is relying on a PDA as the navigation aid, she first calls on the cell phone, indicates the desired destination, then presses a button on the PDA when she is ready to proceed. The server reacts to the user’s voice directions by sending information to the PDA. The PDA uses a voice synthesizer to give directions, and then guides the user with beeps to indicate when the user is to the left or right of the correct path. Beeps also announce when the user is within range of her destination. The absence of beeps indicates the user is on track.

To test the system, the researchers set up a handful of way points on campus— the entrance to the temporary Cal-(IT)2 building, Café Roma and the Price Center stairs by the loading dock.

Miller has also created a program— “What’s in the Neighborhood?”—that enables blind people to virtually learn the lay of the land at UCSD on their PCs before venturing into the physical domain.

“While the target audience for this work is the permanently disabled,” says Ramesh Rao, director of Cal-(IT)2 ’s UCSD Division, “we’re also hoping to better understand how to help those who are temporarily impaired.” This includes emergency responders, who often find themselves blinded by smoke or constrained by HAZMAT suits meant to protect them from toxic chemicals. So research that began with the desire to overcome a personal challenge now promises to have much wider application.