NavCog

A Bluetooth beacon-based navigation system developed at Carnegie Mellon University that provides indoor turn-by-turn navigation assistance and environmental information to blind and visually impaired users via smartphone. NavCog works by detecting BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) beacons installed throughout a building to determine the user's precise location, then delivering audio navigation instructions. The system addresses a key limitation of GPS, which is typically inaccurate indoors and insufficient for the precision required by blind pedestrians. NavCog requires physical infrastructure installation — beacon placement, signal sampling, and path measurement — which has led to complementary research on scalable deployment methods.