„Design and construction of a prototype personal navigation system for aiding the blind in independent travel in urban environments by integrating  stereovision, auditory displays, GPS and digital terrain map technologies” 

Principal investigator: professor Andrzej Materka

The European Union report indicates that for every 1000 Europeans citizens 4 are blind or suffer from serious visual impairment. It is estimated that this disability among the elderly will triple with each decade of their lives. The are approx. 80 thousand visually impaired individuals living in Poland.

Visual disability is a serious barrier depriving the blind of normal active professional and social life. Only the richest countries can finance nationwide programs effectively reducing these barriers (in Sweden only 5.5% of the blind are unemployed whereas in Poland unemployment rate among the blind reaches 87%).