In early October, Jim Halliday, president and CEO of HumanWare, Inc., announced the Department of Education National Institute for Disability Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR) has awarded $450,000 per year for five years for wayfinding research and development to a national all-star team led by Sendero Group. The goal of this project is to create a Global Positioning System (GPS) core platform around which other wayfinding technologies will be tested and incorporated including GPS cell phones, indoor and outdoor navigation, location specific signs, complex intersections and signal lights.
Mike May, Director of Business Development at HumanWare, who also remains CEO of Sendero Group, is the principal investigator of this grant. The investigative team additionally includes the following members: Jack Loomis, Ph.D., Reginald Golledge, Ph.D., and Jim Marston of the University of California-Santa Barbara; Roberta Klatsky, Ph.D., Carnegie-Mellon University; Gordon Legge, Ph.D. and Nick Giudice, University of Minnesota; Paul Ponchillia, Ph.D., Richard Long, Ph.D., John Gesink, Ph.D. and David Guth, Ph.D. of Western Michigan University; Bill Crandall, Ph.D., Smith Kettlewell Institute; Charles LaPierre, Sendero Chief Technology Officer; and Janet Barlow, orientation and mobility consultant.
“This unprecedented collaboration and high level of funding will enable the best of commercial GPS and location information technology to greatly augment orientation for blind and visually impaired persons through our accessible interface,” says Halliday.
Sendero introduced the first commercially available accessible GPS product in March 2000 and has now teamed up with Pulse Data International and HumanWare to add GPS capabilities to the BrailleNote and VoiceNote PDA units.
“Two major events will make accessible navigation and location information a reality,” said Mike May. “First, teaming up with Pulse Data International and HumanWare on the BrailleNote GPS to provide the most innovative, stable and user-friendly platform for the GPS technology. Secondly, collaborating with top universities and orientation and mobility experts to research and develop state-of-the-art wayfinding technology. This is a thrill for me because of the location information access this R&D funding will create. It will have a huge impact on people who are blind or visually impaired.”