International. The i2CAT Foundation will present during the Mobile World Congress, which will take place from February 22 to 25, 2016 in Barcelona, the result of its research in visible light communication (VLC) through an application for the blind that will allow them to be guided with accuracy and immediacy in an unfamiliar environment such as a supermarket.
The proof of concept will show how, with common LED lights and the camera of a mobile, the user can receive on his device information of where he is, what products he has in front of him and where he should go to find the desired products, as well as know which ones are at that moment in offer.
The main novelty presented by this application is the ability to know the orientation of the user indoors, essential in use cases such as the one shown by i2CAT. According to Josep Paradells, director of the i2CAT Foundation, one of the most complicated things for the blind is to be able to move through unknown and changing places such as the shelf of a supermarket. This application allows you to tell you where you should go to get to the products you want, it warns you if you are too close to the shelf and if you are in front of the desired product, informing you at the same time of those that are on offer around you and, if any product is of interest to you, you can ask for more information.
This proposal allows not only to know where the terminal is with an accuracy of 10 centimeters, but also where the mobile terminal is pointing with an accuracy of 3 degrees. With these features, a new range of applications opens up in the field of social inclusion and industry. The speed in transmitting the information is another of the differential features, essential for any application such as the one proposed by the Foundation. The best solution proposed so far can calculate the location five times per second, while i2CAT has managed to do it 15 times per second.
The application presented at the congress is the result of a line of strategic research in which i2CAT has been working for more than three years. The potential of this technology is wide and makes it applicable to various areas such as culture, museums or exhibition halls; the industrial, for example in the guidance of autonomous vehicles in factories; or even outdoors, such as in the calculation of distances and trajectories of cars.
