Abstract
This paper presents an approach to enhance electronic traveling aids (ETAs) for people who are blind and severely visually impaired (BSVI) using indoor orientation and guided navigation by employing social outsourcing of indoor route mapping and assistance processes. This type of approach is necessary because GPS does not work well, and infrastructural investments are absent or too costly to install for indoor navigation. Our approach proposes the prior outsourcing of vision-based recordings of indoor routes from an online network of seeing volunteers, who gather and constantly update a web cloud database of indoor routes using specialized sensory equipment and web services. Computational intelligence-based algorithms process sensory data and prepare them for BSVI usage. In this way, people who are BSVI can obtain ready-to-use access to the indoor routes database. This type of service has not previously been offered in such a setting. Specialized wearable sensory ETA equipment, depth cameras, smartphones, computer vision algorithms, tactile and audio interfaces, and computational intelligence algorithms are employed for that matter. The integration of semantic data of points of interest (such as stairs, doors, WC, entrances/exits) and evacuation schemes could make the proposed approach even more attractive to BVSI users. Presented approach crowdsources volunteers’ real-time online help for complex navigational situations using a mobile app, a live video stream from BSVI wearable cameras, and digitalized maps of buildings’ evacuation schemes.
Highlights
The growing number of people who are blind and severely visually impaired (BSVI) with smartphones, which are multifunctional, multisensory GSM networking devices, has provided the impetus for the development of considerably cheaper electronic traveling assistive (ETA) devices that can employ hardware and software gadgets integrated into smartphones
Its main advantages are (1) the indoor route database is available 24/7, (2) it has an offline working mode, (3) there is no need for indoor infrastructural investments, (4) it has an autonomous and flexible, wearable ETA device with a tactile display and bone-conductive headphones, (5) real-time online volunteer help is available in complex situations using a mobile app, (6) it employs a user-centric approach, and (7) routes can be rated after each guided navigation to allow consequent improvement of the route database via BSVI feedback
The remainder of the paper is organized as follows: Section 2 briefly describes the results of a survey conducted on people who are BSVI concerning their navigation and social networking needs and expectations; Section 3 layouts some insights on ETA enhancements of navigation and orientation using the advantages of participatory Web 2.0; Section 4 brings forth the wearable prototype R&D challenges; Section 5 provides web-based crowdassisted social networking implications for navigation indoors; Section 6 presents the conclusions and discussion
Summary
The growing number of people who are BSVI (blind and severely visually impaired) with smartphones, which are multifunctional, multisensory GSM networking devices, has provided the impetus for the development of considerably cheaper electronic traveling assistive (ETA) devices that can employ hardware and software gadgets (defined by the 3GPP standards collaboration) integrated into smartphones. A wide range of general-purpose social networks, web 2.0 media apps, and other innovative ICT (information and communication technology) tools are developed to improve navigation and orientation They are not destined to meet the specialized requirements of people who are BSVI, some mobile ads make them useful. Its main advantages are (1) the indoor route database is available 24/7 (a kind of Visiopedia), (2) it has an offline working mode, (3) there is no need for indoor infrastructural investments, (4) it has an autonomous and flexible, wearable ETA device with a tactile display and bone-conductive headphones, (5) real-time online volunteer help is available in complex situations using a mobile app, (6) it employs a user-centric approach, and (7) routes can be rated after each guided navigation to allow consequent improvement of the route database via BSVI feedback. The remainder of the paper is organized as follows: Section 2 briefly describes the results of a survey conducted on people who are BSVI concerning their navigation and social networking needs and expectations; Section 3 layouts some insights on ETA enhancements of navigation and orientation using the advantages of participatory Web 2.0; Section 4 brings forth the wearable prototype R&D challenges; Section 5 provides web-based crowdassisted social networking implications for navigation indoors; Section 6 presents the conclusions and discussion
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