Preliminary Work for Vocal and Haptic Navigation Software for Blind Sailors

This research has consisted in the elaboration of a spatial strategy for blind sailors. With auditory information, they can locate the sound buoys along the track. Vocal watches allow time measurement during the race. After some experiments that have isolated these different tools, the conclusion those tactile maps allow stocking accurate tactile pictured representation of the race has been drawn. However, these do not allow any adjustment as to the boat position during action. Even with a limited precision, the auditory feed back makes turning around the buoys along the track possible for blind people. Because of a space time relation, they can transform a time value into a distance value on the map. This strategy implicates an important cognitive load. That is why we would like to use virtual reality techniques to up-to-date haptic pieces of information about the position of the boat on a virtual map during sailing