A Wearable Indoor Navigation System for Blind and Visually Impaired Individuals (original) (raw)
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Sensor Fusion Localization and Navigation for Visually Impaired People
2018 European Control Conference (ECC), 2018
In this paper, we present an innovative cyber physical system for indoor and outdoor localization and navigation, based on the joint utilization of dead-reckoning and computer vision techniques on a smartphone-centric tracking system. The system is explicitly designed for visually impaired people, but it can be easily generalized to other users, and it is built under the assumption that special reference signals, such as colored tapes, painted lines, or tactile paving, are deployed in the environment for guiding visually impaired users along predefined paths. Differently from previous works on localization, which are focused only on the utilization of inertial sensors integrated into the smartphones, we exploit the smartphone camera as an additional sensor that, on one side, can help the visually impaired user to identify the paths and, on the other side, can provide direction estimates to the tracking system. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach, by means of experimental tests performed in a real outdoor installation and in a controlled indoor environment.
arXiv (Cornell University), 2019
there are many systems for indoor navigation specially built for visually impaired people but only some has good accuracy for navigation. While there are solutions like global navigation satellite systems for the localization outdoors, problems arise in urban scenarios and indoors due to insufficient or failed signal reception. To build a support system for navigation for visually impaired people, in this paper we present a comparison of indoor localization and navigation system, which performs continuous and real-time processing using commercially available systems (Beacons and Decawave) under the same experimental condition for the performance analysis. Error is calculated and analyzed using Euclidean distance and standard deviation for both the cases. We used Navigine Platform for this navigation system which allows both Tri-lateration as well as Fingerprinting algorithms. For calculating location we have used the concept of Time of Arrival and time of difference of arrivals. Taking into concern about the blind people, location is important as well as accuracy is necessity because small measurement in the walk is important to them. With this concern, in this paper, we are showing the comparative study of beacons and Decawave. The study and the accuracy tests of those systems for the blind people/user's in navigating indoor are presented in this paper.
An Indoor Navigation System for the Visually Impaired
Sensors, 2012
Navigation in indoor environments is highly challenging for the severely visually impaired, particularly in spaces visited for the first time. Several solutions have been proposed to deal with this challenge. Although some of them have shown to be useful in real scenarios, they involve an important deployment effort or use artifacts that are not natural for blind users. This paper presents an indoor navigation system that was designed taking into consideration usability as the quality requirement to be maximized. This solution enables one to identify the position of a person and calculates the velocity and direction of his movements. Using this information, the system determines the user's trajectory, locates possible obstacles in that route, and offers navigation information to the user. The solution has been evaluated using two experimental scenarios. Although the results are still not enough to provide strong conclusions, they indicate that the system is suitable to guide visually impaired people through an unknown built environment.
An Indoor and Outdoor Navigation System for Visually Impaired People
IEEE Access, 2019
In this paper, we present a system that allows visually impaired people to autonomously navigate in an unknown indoor and outdoor environment. The system, explicitly designed for low vision people, can be generalized to other users in an easy way. We assume that special landmarks are posed for helping the users in the localization of pre-defined paths. Our novel approach exploits the use of both the inertial sensors and the camera integrated into the smartphone as sensors. Such a navigation system can also provide direction estimates to the tracking system to the users. The success of out approach is proved both through experimental tests performed in controlled indoor environments and in real outdoor installations. A comparison with deep learning methods has been presented. INDEX TERMS Navigation, Kalman filtering, visually impaired, computer vision, dead reckoning.
A Review of Technologies and Techniques for Indoor Navigation Systems for the Visually Impaired
Sensors
Technologies and techniques of location and navigation are advancing, allowing greater precision in locating people in complex and challenging conditions. These advances have attracted growing interest from the scientific community in using indoor positioning systems (IPSs) with a higher degree of precision and fast delivery time, for groups of people such as the visually impaired, to some extent improving their quality of life. Much research brings together various works that deal with the physical and logical approaches of IPSs to give the reader a more general view of the models. These surveys, however, need to be continuously revisited to update the literature on the features described. This paper presents an expansion of the range of technologies and methodologies for assisting the visually impaired in previous works, providing readers and researchers with a more recent version of what was done and the advantages and disadvantages of each approach to guide reviews and discussio...
Information and Assisted Navigation System for Blind People
Nowadays public buildings are changing constantly, often people have to take different routes to reach known destinations. At the same time, new services and places are made available to attract more people to the shopping center. This dynamic environment is usually signalled and labelled with visual marks and signs which are not appropriated for blind persons. Therefore, blind users are unintentionally deprived of a full participation in the society. With the purpose of equalize the access to services and spaces among all persons, this work proposes an innovative indoor navigation and information system for public buildings, namely shopping centers, based on existing technologies not used for this purpose. Intending to allow a comfortable and helpful aid on blind persons trips to the shopping center, this proposal system relies on users smartphone and wireless sensors deployed in the environment.
Indoor Navigation Assistant for Visually Impaired (INAVI)
Lecture Notes in Electrical Engineering
Navigating in unknown places can be challenging for people who are deprived of the benefit of sight. The focus of advancements in navigation systems is extended onto helping the visually impaired understand the structure of their surroundings whilst they are traveling. The main idea behind the proposed method is to eliminate the dependency of the visually impaired on unreliable sources in an unfamiliar locality. Most of the public buildings these days, such as college and office buildings are equipped with their own Wi-Fi network which is used by the proposed indoor navigation assistant to direct the user while navigating inside the building. Using the Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) values that are taken from each access point, trilateration is performed for localization, and the speech output guides the person by informing about the current location and thus making it possible for the visually impaired to move inside a building without any human assistance.
Computer vision and GIS for the navigation of blind persons in buildings
Universal Access in the Information Society, 2014
This paper presents a system which integrates a geographic information system of a building with computer vision. It uses only one camera, for example, the one of a mobile phone. Visual landmarks, such as frontal and lateral doors, stairs, signs, and fire extinguishers, are employed for localizing the user in the building and for tracing and validating a route for the user's navigation. The developed system clearly improves the autonomy of persons with a very low vision during indoor navigation.
Real Time Indoor Navigation System For Visually Impaired
International Journal of Engineering and Advanced Technology, 2019
Indoor Navigation system is gaining lot of importance these days. It is particularly important to locate places inside a large university campus, Airport, Railway station or Museum. There are many mobile applications developed recently using different techniques. The work proposed in this paper is focusing on the need of visually challenged people while navigating in indoor environment. The approach proposed here implements the system using Beacon. The application developed with the system gives audio guidance to the user for navigation.
The World Health Organization estimated in 2014 that 285 million people worldwide are visually impaired: 39 million are blind and 246 million have low vision. Islam is a universal religion; achieving equality is one of its most important values. Islam is a faith community in which everybody interacts with everybody else. The Holy Quraan mentioned the disabled as part of our life, discussed their rights and urged to take care of them in more than one place. Therefore, everyone has a responsibility to contribute to the best of their ability. In order to achieve equality for blind people, a suitable environment should be offered to them to facilitate their mobility in public spaces and holy spaces like Mosques. Mobility and orientation are very challenging for blind or visually impaired persons. Difficulties in wayfinding may cause stress and anxiety, which may discourage them to visit unknown places. Therefore, blind Muslims have the right to navigate inside mosques without any direct help, providing essential information for them, such as Qibla direction, ablution places and other facilities. Several mobile applications have been developed to help blind or visually impaired people to find their ways in large spatial environments, yet religious environments require such applications to help B/VI people navigate inside mosques without direct help. Most of these applications depend mainly on GPS. However, it is argued that GPS is inadequate for indoor localization due to the loss of GPS signal indoors. Accordingly, this paper introduces an indoor positioning system, relying on Bluetooth devices. Thanks to the increasing number of portable devices, this study aims to utilize indoor positioning system techniques to potentially facilitate the navigation and the perception of blind people in mosque indoor environments. The study offers a conceptual approach that investigates how Bluetooth localization can be used as a promising technique for that aim by distributing low energy beacons along the floor plan of the mosque which are uniquely identified by the user’s smart phone and can be accessed using voice recognition technique. Decisions are accordingly communicated to users via virtual verbal guidance. The paper also opens a discussion about the potential challenges and concerns which future explorations, scientific research and real-world applications of indoor positioning systems will encounter.