An Interdisciplinary Approach: Potential for Robotic Support to Address Wayfinding Barriers Among Persons with Visual Impairments

Abstract

Persons with Vision Impairments (PwVI) often have difficulties navigating indoor environments. The challenges and solutions can change based on their level of familiarity with the location. A collaborative effort was made to design a user needs assessment to understand the collaborative nature of human-robot interaction for wayfinding. The user study was an interview study to discuss with PwVI their navigation experience in familiar, somewhat familiar, and unfamiliar locations. Following this, we discussed their current solution strategies for wayfinding in those locations to discuss how they could imagine a robot to support wayfinding. We report on four case studies to illustrate specific user needs, such as vocal direction and orientation to learn a new environment and navigate, and highlight common strategies, such as supplemental lighting, different types of human assistance, and technologies used (i.e. white canes).

Decentralized Structural-RNN for Robot Crowd Navigation with Deep Reinforcement Learning

“…Speech is a natural choice for human-robot communication, particularly in cases where the human has limited vision [2]- [4]. To this end, as shown in purple in Fig.…”

“…Wayfinding, defined as helping people orient themselves in an environment and guiding them from place to place, is a longstanding challenge for persons with visual impairments (PwVI) [1], [2]. A guiding robot that can verbally interact with PwVI and connect language to the world, such as finding a destination or helping the user understand the environment, has the potential to improve the quality of their lives and to also reduce the load on their caregivers [2]- [4].…”

“…Our main contributions are as follows: (1) As an interactive navigation guide for PwVI, DRAGON enables voicebased dialogue, which carries rich information and has grounding capabilities; (2) We propose a novel landmark mapping and recognition method that can associate free-form language commands with image landmarks. Our method can be easily plugged into the navigation stack of mobile robots; and (3) A user study (N=5) with blindfolded participants demonstrates that DRAGON is able to understand user intents through dialogue and guide them to desired destinations in an intuitive manner.…”

Everyday Challenges for Individuals Aging With Vision Impairment: Technology Implications

“…Home-based IADLs, such as housework, meal preparation, medication management, and money management, have been reported as particularly difficult among older adults with vision impairment ( Hochberg et al, 2012 ; Peres et al, 2017 ; Steinman, 2016 ). Vision impairment can contribute to mobility challenges among older adults, including limitations with walking, navigation, and physical activity, as well as fear of falling ( Bayles et al, 2022 ; National Academies of Sciences Engineering and Medicine, 2016 ). Community-based activities that involve outdoor mobility and transportation, such as going to appointments or shopping, have also been documented as difficult activities ( Cimarolli et al, 2012 ; Hochberg et al, 2012 ).…”