A GPS based navigation aid for the blind

Balachandran, W.; Cecelja, Franjo; Ptasinski, P.

doi:10.1109/icecom.2003.1290948

Cited by 35 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…After the world coordinate is fixed, the rotation of the camera coordinate with reference world coordinate, denoted , is calculated. The state of the camera is then initialized with (2) where is the quaternion representation of , and is calculated by Eq. 1 for .…”

Section: B State Initializationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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6-DOF pose estimation of a Portable Navigation Aid for the visually impaired

Tamjidi

Hong

2013

2013 IEEE International Symposium on Robotic and Sensors Environments (ROSE)

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In this paper, we present a 6-DOF pose estimation method for a Portable Navigation Aid for the visually impaired. The navigation aid uses a single 3D camera SwissRanger SR4000 for both pose estimation and object/obstacle detection. The SR4000 provides intensity and range data of the scene. These data are simultaneously processed to estimate the camera's egomotion, which is then used as the motion model by an Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) to track the visual features maintained in a local map. In order to create correct feature correspondences between images, a 3-point RANSAC (RANdom SAmple Consensus) process is devised to identify the inliers from the feature correspondences based on the SIFT (Scale Invariant Feature Transform) descriptors. Only the inliers are used to update the EKF's state. Additional inliers caused by the updated state are then located and used to perform another state update. The EKF integrates the egomotion into the camera's pose in the world coordinate with a relatively small error. Since the camera's y coordinate may be measured as the distance between the camera and the floor plane, it is used as an additional observation in this work. Experimental results indicate that the proposed pose estimation method results in accurate pose estimates for positioning the visually impaired in an indoor environment.

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Section: B State Initializationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The idea of using GPS for such applications has been well studied in the research community [1,2,3] and GPS-based navigation aids [4] have become commercially available. Unfortunately, these devices cannot be used indoor due to the unavailability of GPS signal.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

6-DOF pose estimation of a Portable Navigation Aid for the visually impaired

Tamjidi

Hong

2013

2013 IEEE International Symposium on Robotic and Sensors Environments (ROSE)

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“…While some studies have tested differential GPS which provides an accuracy of around 1 m, it is a costly and cumbersome equipment which needs fixed ground stations and is only efficient outdoors. 6,7 Alternative devices have been designed to assist blind people in their mobility and orientation tasks indoors, such as ultrasound, 8 or radio frequency identification transponders, 9 using a robotic "dog-guide", 10 or an instrumented white cane. 11 Several real-time location systems (RLTS) based on distributed wireless sensor networks have also been tested for indoor human position sensing.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Outdoor/Indoor Vision-Based Localization for Blind Pedestrian Navigation Assistance

Treuillet

Royer

2010

Int. J. Image Grap.

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The most challenging issue facing the navigation assistive systems for the visually impaired is the instantaneous and accurate spatial localization of the user. Most of the previously proposed systems are based on global positioning system (GPS) sensors. However, the accuracy of low-cost versions is insufficient for pedestrian use. Furthermore, GPS-based systems are confined to outdoor navigation and experience severe signal losts in urban areas. This paper presents a new approach for localizing a person by using a single-body-mounted camera and computer vision techniques. Instantaneous accurate localization and heading estimates of the person are computed from images as the user progresses along a memorized path. A portable prototype has been tested for outdoor as well as indoor pedestrian use. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the vision-based localization: the accuracy is sufficient for making it possible to guide and maintain the blind person within a navigation corridor less than 1 m wide along the intended path. In combination with a suitable guiding interface, such a localization system will be convenient to assist the visually impaired in their everyday movements outdoors as well as indoors.

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“…Since these assumptions are violated for human pose estimation, there are only few attempts to apply this knowledge to assist the visually impaired in their everyday navigation tasks. Instead most relevant efforts have focused on GPS-based outdoor navigation for humans, which cannot be used inside a building (Makino et al 1996;Balachandran et al 2003;Ceranka and Niedzwiecki 2003;Ran et al 2004). …”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Design and Analysis of a Portable Indoor Localization Aid for the Visually Impaired

Hesch

Roumeliotis

2010

The International Journal of Robotics Research

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Abstract-In this paper, we present the design and analysis of a portable position and orientation (pose) estimation aid for the visually impaired. Our prototype navigation aid consists of a foot-mounted pedometer and a white cane-mounted sensing package, which is comprised of a 3-axis gyroscope and a 2D laser scanner. We introduce a two-layered estimator that tracks the 3D orientation of the white cane in the first layer, and the 2D position of the person holding the cane in the second layer. Our algorithm employs a known building map to update the person's position, and exploits perpendicularity in the building layout as a 3D structural compass. We analytically study the observability properties of the linearized dynamical system, and we provide sufficient observability conditions. We evaluate the real-world performance of our localization aid, and demonstrate its reliability for accurate, real-time human localization.

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A GPS based navigation aid for the blind

Cited by 35 publications

References 4 publications

6-DOF pose estimation of a Portable Navigation Aid for the visually impaired

6-DOF pose estimation of a Portable Navigation Aid for the visually impaired

Outdoor/Indoor Vision-Based Localization for Blind Pedestrian Navigation Assistance

Design and Analysis of a Portable Indoor Localization Aid for the Visually Impaired

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