Location Techniques for the Design of a Walking Aid Network for Visual Impaired Students

Abstract

Universities may have students with visual impairments that require support and facilities in order to ensure for help them adequate educational experience. Fortunately, many universities have already adopted particular solutions for those students by providing supportive services and advanced technologies. However, other campuses are still left behind and, thus, special solutions are still to be implemented. This position paper represents a preliminary study in this direction for a case-study university campus in Oman. It attempts to employ the location optimization techniques to design a walking aid network with rest lounges for students who are blind or suffer from a visual impairment. The walking network will connect the several classrooms,the administrative offices and the service structures that these students frequently visit during their academic day. The walking network will be equipped by tactile tiles and has, thus, budget and execution time restriction for its implementation. For this purpose, our approach will consist in selecting a subset of the available routes to be used for the tactile tiles installation purpose and also in developing the project management technique that allows to complete the project in the minimum span time. Preliminary results on the implementation of such techniques in the Omani University campus will be discussed.