NavCog3 in the Wild

Abstract

NavCog3 is a smartphone turn-by-turn navigation assistant system we developed specifically designed to enable independent navigation for people with visual impairments. Using off-the-shelf Bluetooth beacons installed in the surrounding environment and a commodity smartphone carried by the user, NavCog3 achieves unparalleled localization accuracy in real-world large-scale scenarios. By leveraging its accurate localization capabilities, NavCog3 guides the user through the environment and signals the presence of semantic features and points of interest in the vicinity (e.g., doorways, shops). To assess the capability of NavCog3 to promote independent mobility of individuals with visual impairments, we deployed and evaluated the system in two challenging real-world scenarios. The first scenario demonstrated the scalability of the system, which was permanently installed in a five-story shopping mall spanning three buildings and a public underground area. During the study, 10 participants traversed three fixed routes, and 43 participants traversed free-choice routes across the environment. The second scenario validated the system’s usability in the wild in a hotel complex temporarily equipped with NavCog3 during a conference for individuals with visual impairments. In the hotel, almost 14.2h of system usage data were collected from 37 unique users who performed 280 travels across the environment, for a total of 30,200m traversed.

A Bibliometric Narrative Review on Modern Navigation Aids for People with Visual Impairment

“…It uses a bluetooth low energy (BLE) beacon to collect scene knowledge and instruct users verbally. A considerable number of experimental studies have been conducted in airports [8], campuses [9], and other venues. It is worth mentioning that its later version also displays guidance clues, using the phone screen to enhance the instructions for users with residual vision [9,10].…”

“…A considerable number of experimental studies have been conducted in airports [8], campuses [9], and other venues. It is worth mentioning that its later version also displays guidance clues, using the phone screen to enhance the instructions for users with residual vision [9,10]. Akihiro Yamashita, who worked closely with Katsushi Matsubayashi and Kei Sato, built a navigation system that uses radio frequency identification devices (RFID) and the quasi zenith satellite system (QZSS) to reinforce localization.…”

Seamless Wayfinding by a Deafblind Adult on an Urban College Campus: A Case Study on Wayfinding Performance, Information Preferences, and Technology Requirements

“…Prior research evidenced that perceptions on the usefulness of information on distal and proximal landmarks differed among individual travelers depending on the type of wayfinding task undertaken (Tom and Denis, 2003;Li, 2006;Norgate and Ormerod, 2012;Kettunen et al, 2013;Denis et al, 2014;Li et al, 2014;Nuhn and Timpf, 2017;Padmanaban and Krukar, 2017;Sato et al, 2019). In this context, Allen (1999) put forward the conceptual distinction between wayfinding tasks that focus on the exploration of an environment, a wayfinding explore (Allen, 1999), and those that are foremost concerned with reaching an unfamiliar destination, a wayfinding quest (Sato et al, 2019).…”

Inertial Measurement Unit Sensors in Assistive Technologies for Visually Impaired People, a Review

“…In addition, there are great advances in miniaturized sensors capable of providing parameters of moving objects, such as position and velocity [15][16][17]. The fusion of the advances in both sensors and artificial intelligence has led to many projects that seek to support VIP in navigation [18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27], traveling [28][29][30][31], representation of the real world [32][33][34][35], obstacle detection on wayfinding [29,[36][37][38], assistant robots [39,40], and other applications…”