Gemstone Team Research

Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/9070

The Gemstone Program at the University of Maryland is a unique multidisciplinary four-year research program for selected undergraduate honors students of all majors. Under guidance of faculty mentors and Gemstone staff, teams of students design, direct and conduct significant research, often but not exclusively exploring the interdependence of science and technology with society. Gemstone students are members of a living-learning community comprised of fellow students, faculty and staff who work together to enrich the undergraduate experience. This community challenges and supports the students in the development of their research, teamwork, communication and leadership skills. In the fourth year, each team of students presents its research in the form of a thesis to experts, and the students complete the program with a citation and a tangible sense of accomplishment.

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End date: 2009Subject: search.filters.subject.blind

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    A navigation and object location device for the blind
    (2009-05) Caperna, Steve; Cheng, Christopher; Cho, Junghee; Fan, Victoria; Luthra, Avishkar; O'Leary, Brendan; Sheng, Jansen; Sun, Andrew; Stearns, Lee; Tessler, Roni; Wong, Paul; Yeh, Jimmy; Chellappa, Rama; Tang, Cha-Min
    Team Vision's goal is to create a navigation system for the blind. To achieve this, we took a multi-pronged approach. First, through surveys, we assessed the needs of the blind community and developed a system around those needs. Then, using recent technology, we combined a global positioning system (GPS), inertial navigation unit (INU), computer vision algorithms, and audio and haptic interfaces into one system. The GPS and INU work together to provide walking directions from building to building when outdoors and the computer vision algorithms identify and locate objects such as signs and landmarks, both indoors and outdoors. The speech-based interface ties the GPS, INU, and computer vision algorithms together into an interactive audio-based navigation device. Finally, the haptic interface provides an alternative intuitive directional guidance system. The resulting system guides users to speci ed buildings and to important objects such as cellular telephones, wallets, or even restroom or exit signs.