Development of a digital self-powered wayfinding beacon to support people with visual impairment and reduced mobility with indoor navigation

Lightricity aims to develop a light-powered wayfinding beacon product that makes inclusion of visually and mobility impaired people in indoor navigation systems both practically possible and economically viable.

We will apply our patented, highly efficient, indoor PV (photovoltaic) technology and novel power management architectures to highly miniaturised battery-free wayfinding beacon devices. These maintenance-free devices will be designed for deployment at light fittings to ensure sufficient power for rapid beaconing and additional sensors in order to provide the required accuracy of location and other information that will enable audio guiding of the visually impaired and smart routing to help both the visually and mobility impaired navigate independently via the most accessible routes and avoiding obstacles.

Our solution will address the current limitations of wayfinding solutions which are preventing IoT navigation solution providers from offering an inclusive service. Typically, they use battery-powered beacons for indoor navigation/wayfinding solutions in large buildings such as hospitals, transport hubs, shopping centres, offices and other public buildings. Hundreds to thousands of these devices placed in fixed locations in a building communicate directly with customer's mobile phones, helping them navigate routes on an App-based building map. These battery-powered beacons cannot be deployed at great enough density or with additional sensing function to add more inclusive functionality due to the high operational cost of having to change batteries every 6-12 months to maintain the required beaconing frequency and system accuracy.