scholarly journals Indoor Navigation Systems for Visually Impaired Persons: Mapping the Features of Existing Technologies to User Needs

Sensors ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 636 ◽  
Author(s):  
Darius Plikynas ◽  
Arūnas Žvironas ◽  
Andrius Budrionis ◽  
Marius Gudauskis
Keyword(s):  
Visually Impaired ◽  
Evaluation Criteria ◽  
Indoor Navigation ◽  
Public Institutions ◽  
Indoor Environments ◽  
Navigation Systems ◽  
Global Positioning ◽  
Visually Impaired Persons ◽  
Head Level ◽  
Outdoor Navigation

Currently, several outdoor navigation and orientation electronic traveling aid (ETA) solutions for visually impaired (VI) people are commercially available or in active development. This paper’s survey of blind experts has shown that after outdoor navigation, the second most important ETA feature for VI persons is indoor navigation and orientation (in public institutions, supermarkets, office buildings, homes, etc.). VI persons need ETA for orientation and navigation in unfamiliar indoor environments with embedded features for the detection and recognition of obstacles (not only on the ground but also at head level) and desired destinations such as rooms, staircases, and elevators. The development of such indoor navigation systems, which do not have Global Positioning System (GPS) locational references, is challenging and requires an overview and evaluation of existing systems with different navigation technologies. This paper presents an evaluation and comparison of state-of-the-art indoor navigation solutions, and the research implications provide a summary of the critical observations, some insights, and directions for further developments. The paper maps VI needs in relation to research and development (R&D) trends using the evaluation criteria deemed most important by blind experts.

scholarly journals Deep Learning-Based Positioning of Visually Impaired People in Indoor Environments

Sensors ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (21) ◽  
pp. 6238
Author(s):  
Payal Mahida ◽  
Seyed Shahrestani ◽  
Hon Cheung
Keyword(s):  
Navigation System ◽  
Visually Impaired ◽  
Indoor Environment ◽  
Inertial Sensor ◽  
User Interaction ◽  
Indoor Navigation ◽  
Sensor Data ◽  
Indoor Environments ◽  
Visually Impaired People ◽  
Indoor Navigation System

Wayfinding and navigation can present substantial challenges to visually impaired (VI) people. Some of the significant aspects of these challenges arise from the difficulty of knowing the location of a moving person with enough accuracy. Positioning and localization in indoor environments require unique solutions. Furthermore, positioning is one of the critical aspects of any navigation system that can assist a VI person with their independent movement. The other essential features of a typical indoor navigation system include pathfinding, obstacle avoidance, and capabilities for user interaction. This work focuses on the positioning of a VI person with enough precision for their use in indoor navigation. We aim to achieve this by utilizing only the capabilities of a typical smartphone. More specifically, our proposed approach is based on the use of the accelerometer, gyroscope, and magnetometer of a smartphone. We consider the indoor environment to be divided into microcells, with the vertex of each microcell being assigned two-dimensional local coordinates. A regression-based analysis is used to train a multilayer perceptron neural network to map the inertial sensor measurements to the coordinates of the vertex of the microcell corresponding to the position of the smartphone. In order to test our proposed solution, we used IPIN2016, a publicly-available multivariate dataset that divides the indoor environment into cells tagged with the inertial sensor data of a smartphone, in order to generate the training and validating sets. Our experiments show that our proposed approach can achieve a remarkable prediction accuracy of more than 94%, with a 0.65 m positioning error.

scholarly journals INDOOR NAVIGATION ASSISTANCE SYSTEM USING BLUETOOTH

2016 ◽  
pp. 44-45
Author(s):  
APURVA MEHTA ◽  
D. D. PUKALE ◽  
RADHIKA BHAGAT ◽  
RUJAL SHAH
Keyword(s):  
Short Range ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Indoor Navigation ◽  
Assistance System ◽  
Navigation Systems ◽  
Positioning Systems ◽  
Navigation Assistance ◽  
The Past ◽  
Current Location ◽  
Global Positioning

In the past few years, a number of ideas have been proposed for indoor navigation systems. These ideas were not as widely implemented as outdoor positioning systems like GPS(Global Positioning Systems). We propose an indoor navigation assistance system using Bluetooth which is low cost and feasible to use in daily life. Our system enables users with handheld mobile devices to steer with ease through the indoor premises using the short range radio frequencies of Bluetooth. It also establishes user’s current location and the various paths leading to the destination. Dijkstra’s algorithm is used to determine the shortest path from the source to the required destination.

scholarly journals Indoor Navigation Systems for Blind People

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ali Hojjat
Keyword(s):  
Computer Vision ◽  
Visually Impaired ◽  
Indoor Navigation ◽  
Blind People ◽  
Navigation Systems ◽  
Visually Impaired People ◽  
Impaired People ◽  
Outdoor Environments

Indoor navigation systems must deal with absence of GPS signals, since they are only available in outdoor environments. Therefore, indoor systems have to rely upon other techniques for positioning users. Recently various indoor navigation systems have been designed and developed to help visually impaired people. In this paper an overview of some existing indoor navigation systems for visually impaired people are presented and they are compared from different perspectives. The evaluated techniques are ultrasonic systems, RFID-based solutions, computer vision aided navigation systems, ans smartphone-based applications.

Can Near Field Communication Solve the Limitations in Mobile Indoor Navigation?

2015 ◽  
pp. 52-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wilson E. Sakpere ◽  
Michael O. Adeyeye
Keyword(s):  
Mobile Devices ◽  
Near Field ◽  
Indoor Navigation ◽  
Near Field Communication ◽  
Indoor Environments ◽  
Research Challenges ◽  
Exploratory Stage ◽  
Novel Method ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Outdoor Navigation

The navigation ecosystem is rapidly changing. Indoor navigation has attracted attention with the introduction of mobile devices into the market. Although mobile devices are used more often for outdoor navigation, they have opened up opportunities for indoor navigation proponents. Near Field Communication in indoor navigation is still in its exploratory stage. Despite an increase in the variety of indoor navigation research, challenges remain in designing a framework that is neither complex nor expensive. NFC is a novel method of navigating in indoor environments. Providing an overview of its benefits and usefulness compared with existing indoor navigation technologies is the subject of this chapter.

scholarly journals On the Right Track: Comfort and Confusion in Indoor Environments

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 132 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nina Vanhaeren ◽  
Laure De Cock ◽  
Lieselot Lapon ◽  
Nico Van de Weghe ◽  
Kristien Ooms ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Focus Group ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Route Planning ◽  
Indoor Navigation ◽  
Indoor Environments ◽  
Navigation Systems ◽  
Online Study ◽  
Planning Algorithm ◽  
The Right

Indoor navigation systems are not well adapted to the needs of their users. The route planning algorithms implemented in these systems are usually limited to shortest path calculations or derivatives, minimalizing Euclidian distance. Guiding people along routes that adhere better to their cognitive processes could ease wayfinding in indoor environments. This paper examines comfort and confusion perception during wayfinding by applying a mixed-method approach. The aforementioned method combined an exploratory focus group and a video-based online survey. From the discussions in the focus group, it could be concluded that indoor wayfinding must be considered at different levels: the local level and the global level. In the online survey, the focus was limited to the local level, i.e., local environmental characteristics. In this online study, the comfort and confusion ratings of multiple indoor navigation situations were analyzed. In general, the results indicate that open spaces and stairs need to be taken into account in the development of a more cognitively-sounding route planning algorithm. Implementing the results in a route planning algorithm could be a valuable improvement of indoor navigation support.

scholarly journals Indoor navigation by blind people: Behaviors and challenges in unfamiliar spaces and buildings

2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 140-153 ◽  
Author(s):  
Watthanasak Jeamwatthanachai ◽  
Mike Wald ◽  
Gary Wills
Keyword(s):  
Visually Impaired ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Indoor Navigation ◽  
Environmental Cues ◽  
Navigation Systems ◽  
Additional Information ◽  
Visually Impaired People ◽  
Impaired People ◽  
First Time ◽  
Indoor Spaces

A number of visually impaired people suffer from navigation-related activities due to mishaps that discourage them from going out for social activities and interactions. In contrast to outdoors, traveling inside public spaces is a different story, as many environmental cues cannot be used and have their own set of difficulties. Some technologies have come into play in helping these people to have freedom in navigation (e.g., accessible map, indoor navigation systems, and wearable computing devices). However, technologies like accessible maps or indoor navigation systems are insufficient to fulfill the independent navigation gap as additional information is required (obstacles, barriers, and accessibility). To promote indoor navigation and create better use of technologies for visually impaired people, it is essential to understand the facts and actual problems that they experience, and what behaviors and strategies they use to overcome any problems; these are the concerns that led to this study. In all, 30 visually impaired people and 15 experts were recruited to give an interview about the behavior and strategies used to navigate indoor spaces, especially public spaces, for example, universities, hospitals, malls, museums, and airports. The findings from this study reveal that navigating inside buildings and public spaces full of unfamiliar features is too difficult to attempt the first time for a number of reasons, reducing their confidence in independent navigation.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document