Improving Accessibility for those with Impaired Mobility (I-AIM) University of Newcastle Upon Tyne (Transport Operations Research Group and Department of Child Health) Card Europe Newcastle City Council (City IT Services) Start: July 1999 Budget: 130K EQUAL SJE:IAIM0600

I-AIM will….. develop a device to fit to wheelchairs to aid navigation in complex public buildings and on street environments utilise existing contactless smartcard infrastructure (providing cost effectiveness). improve accessibility and social inclusion and thus overall quality of life for wheelchair users integrate the design process with special needs research enable service providers to comply with the DDA

I-AIM: the Navigation Device l consists of a simple visual display plus smartcard reader l interacts with a passive network of fixed contactless smartcards deployed as navigation nodes throughout a finite domain, rather than an active network of beacons l negotiates a suitable route to a predefined user destination

Functionality of Navigation Aid l navigator contains map of domain (passive nodes connected by links). Links have attributes of length and accessibility weighting (suitability to various users); l navigator is set to destination. It is placed in proximity of node establishing current location. Map is accessed and appropriate direction of progress for user is indicated on display; l tracking of progress is possible. Each node stores record of interrogation time and user identity.

Node/Reader Interface a contact-card or close-coupled card interface is clearly not appropriate to I-AIM; proximity cards are the most widely available card technology at the moment - however card to reader range is limited to 10 cm; vicinity cards with a much greater range largely do not exist as a reliable technology at the moment.

Proximity Cards l ISO/IEC CD Near a Target

Human Machine Interface Design

Visual Display Simple buttons Directional arrows