Abstract— Individuals with mobility impairments such as wheelchair users are often at a disadvantage when traveling to a new place, as their mobility can be easily affected by environmental barriers, and as such, even short trips can be difficult and perhaps impossible. We envision a personalized wheelchair navigation system based on a PDA equipped with wireless Internet access and GPS that can provide adaptive navigation support to wheelchair users in any geographic environment. Requirements, architectures and components of such a system are described in this paper. Keywords – Wheelchair users, accessibility, environment barriers, wheelchair navigation, GPS. I. INTRODUCTION ndependent mobility is an important dimension of quality of life for individuals with mobility impairments such as wheelchair users [1]. These individuals may encounter an array of environmental barriers during their activities of daily living, some of which they may overcome and others they may not. A study conducted by Meyers et al. [2] interviewed 28 adult wheelchair users and found that the barriers frequently reported included narrow aisles, no ramps or steep ramps, bad weather, door handles or door pressure, no curb cuts or blocked cuts, travel surfaces, obstructed travel, etc. The Americans with Disability Act (ADA) and Architecture Barriers Act developed specific accessibility guidelines for buildings and facilities that should be applied during the design, construction, and alteration of buildings and facilities [3]. However, environmental barriers remain to be a problem preventing wheelchair users from participation and integration into the community [4]. I Many wheelchair users hesitate to visit an unfamiliar place because they have no information about the new environment and its accessibility conditions [1]. They D. Ding is with the Dept. of Rehabilitation Science and Technology at the University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260, and Human Engineering Research Laboratories, VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System, Pittsburgh, PA 15206 (phone: 412-365-4885; fax: 412-365-4858, email: dad5@pitt.edu) B. Parmanto and Gede Pramana are with the Dept. of Health Information Management at the University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260 (email: parmanto@pitt.edu, igp1@pitt.edu). H. Karimi, D. Roongpiboonsopit, T. Conahan, and P. Kasemsuppakorn are with the School of Information Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260 (email: hkarimi@mail.sis.pitt.edu, nan_engcmu@hotmail.com, tom.conahan@gmail.com,pik2@pitt.edu). usually have no options but rely on repetitive and regular routes with least obstructions for their daily movement in a predefined area. Still these routes, especially in a dynamic changing environment such as a university campus, are not free from unexpected obstacles and changes of accessible conditions such as icy walkway, road blockades, and a malfunctioning automatic door. These problems can be anticipated and avoided if wheelchair users are provided with accurate and reliable information about access and mobility options, and are notified about changes, which would greatly facilitate safe and effective wheelchair navigation, in particular, around unfamiliar environments. Recent advances of modern wireless communication technology, Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Global Positioning System (GPS), and intelligent information systems have shown great promise in car navigation. Some of these technologies have been employed to develop navigation aids for the blind and visually impaired. However, there is no such systems reported for navigating people using wheelchairs. Existing car navigation systems are inappropriate for wheelchair navigation for several reasons, most important one is the lack of relevant information to wheelchair accessibility such as sidewalks, sidewalk conditions (grade, steps, smoothness) and building conditions (accessible entrance, elevators, and bathroom) in car navigation databases. Much research has been focused on developing ‘smart’ wheelchairs for navigation assistance mainly in indoor environments [5, 6]. These wheelchairs are usually equipped with sensors to detect obstacles and use computer vision or environmental markers for localization and navigation. While some work on outdoor navigation using GPS and other sensors has been reported [7, 8], their contribution is on obstacle detection and autonomous navigation instead of on the infrastructure of the environment and accessible route planning. Several literatures report application of GPS and GIS to developing navigation maps for individuals with disabilities [9-11]. For example, Beale et al. [9] developed, tested, and applied a GIS for modeling access for wheelchair users in urban areas; Kurihara et al. [10] presented a general architecture of GIS for assisting the users in creating barrier- free street maps by using the Internet and the highly accurate GPS; and Sobek and Miller [11] developed a web-based system as a tool for routing pedestrians of differing abilities and analytical evaluation of existing infrastructure. Design Considerations for a Personalized Wheelchair Navigation System Dan Ding, Member, IEEE, Bambang Parmanto, Hassan A. Karimi, Duangduen Roongpiboonsopit, Gede Pramana, Thomas Conahan, Piyawan Kasemsuppakorn Proceedings of the 29th Annual International Conference of the IEEE EMBS Cité Internationale, Lyon, France August 23-26, 2007. SaP1D3.9 1-4244-0788-5/07/$20.00 ©2007 IEEE 4790