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Inspiration comes in many forms.
For Panos Linos, a Butler University computer science and software engineering professor, it came from blind and visually impaired students in some of his classes.
He noticed the challenges they had with tasks other students don’t even think about. For instance, how to navigate the campus and get from one class to another in an ever changing environment dotted with construction projects, landscape changes and other hazards.
Navigating a campus can be especially tricky because there are fewer traditional streets and other cues a GPS program could detect to give navigation.
So Linos, who began teaching at Butler in 2000, started thinking of ways to help blind and other seriously visually impaired individuals.
In 2015, he met with officials from the Indiana School for the Blind and Visually Impaired to gauge the need for a navigation system that goes beyond the capabilities of commercially available systems mostly used by people with sight.
Blind students there and at other campuses often have to be accompanied by a person with sight until they build a map of their route in their mind.
“What we found is that there’s a real need to help people with visual impairments to get from place to place on their campus,” Linos said.
With the help of a cadre of Butler students, Linos in 2018 released GuideDawg 1.0, a custom app to help students and staff with visual impairments navigate the campus of the local school for the blind.
GuideDawg has some unique features typical GPS navigation systems don’t have. The app tells people how many steps it is between places or before a change in direction is needed. It also alerts them to obstacles—even temporary ones that crop up unexpectedly. The app also uses audio cues to give people directions. For instance, the sound of an HVAC unit, a water fountain or an elevator can be used as cues to give directions.
After piloting the app at the local school for the blind, Linos sought to expand its reach.
This fall, Linos and Butler students went to work on GuideDawg 2.0, an app that works on iPhones (like GuideDawg 1.0) but also on Android devices. “We migrated from Apple to Microsoft to make this more [device] agnostic,” he explained.
GuideDawg 2.0 is being custom designed for the Butler campus. The app, Linos said, could be used by students and staff at the university as well as visually impaired visitors.
GuideDawg 2.0 will be designed to better warn users about construction sites and other hazardous areas, Linos said. The team will deploy iBeacons—low-energy Bluetooth devices—at various sites around campus. Those devices will push out signals picked up by the GuideDawg app that will warn users of obstacles and hazards.
Linos hopes to have the new app done by the summer of 2020.
“The bigger campus that we’re working on creates more challenges for us, and we’re still working on expanding the voice-to-text and text-to-voice technology,” Linos said.
The GuideDawg 1.0 project was funded through a $19,000 grant from the President’s Innovation Fund started by Butler President James Danko. Linos has raised $1,000 for the development of GuideDawg 2.0 and he said fundraising continues.
“Butler is using this app to help fulfill its mission of inclusion and diversity,” Linos said.
He said the app could be adopted by other schools with campus settings and could have wider applications.
“We’re not there yet,” Linos said. “For now, we’re focused on the students of Butler. But yes, I think this could certainly be used on other campuses, and it could be a big help.”
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