Enhancing museum accessibility for visually disabled people and its environmental monitoring using IOT technology: the case of National Museum of Rwanda

Abstract

Internet of things helps people to live and work smarter, as well as gain complete control over their lives. Humans obtain 83% of their knowledge by sight according to human physiology references and one out of 100 people is visually impaired in Rwanda. In secondary school one out of three children with disability is blind or visually impaired. Blindness causes challenges to perform different tasks including learning new skills and having fun. Accessing museums has been difficult for blind and visual impaired people. Some systems have been implemented to assist visually disabled people in museums with customized designs depending on different types of the museums and what they represent. Most of them focus on the use of other technologies such as smart sticks and wearable devices. However, they require additional cost and don’t provide the fully enjoyable experience of visiting museums for blind people. The aim of this study is to create a prototype that is simple, fast, accurate and cost-effective which enables visually disabled people to enjoy the museum experience and allow remote monitoring of the objects inside the museum. A headset is given to the user at the entrance of the museum; he is then required to use his sense of touch to explore the object. By touching the object through the capacitive touch sensors that are connected to the object, the information is processed and presented in an audio format through the Bluetooth headsets. Also, this solution is used to monitor and control the museum environmental conditions such as; temperature and humidity which are the essential elements of collections care. The results obtained from the prototype indicates that the temperature varies from 23.7°C to 30°C and the humidity varies between 35% to 62 % due to the surrounding environment but the recommended temperature for museum items is 16°C to 20°C and the humidity should not drop below 40% or rise above 70%, lowering the temperature greatly increased the longevity of collections and a change in humidity causes dimensional alteration in hygroscopic materials (for example wood, ivory, skin, and other organic materials), resulting in warping, splitting, and delamination of sensitive materials. The implemented system allows people who are visually impaired to learn and enjoy the museum experience so that they can be reintegrated in the society; it also prevent the damage of museum items materials of by controlling and monitoring the temperature and humidity.