Indoor Inertial Waypoint Navigation for the Blind
Riehle, T. H., Anderson, S. M., Lichter, P. A., Whalen, W.E., & Giudice, Indoor Inertial Waypoint Navigation for the Blind. Proceedings of the 35th annual IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Conference (EMBC’12, Vol. 2013), 2013.
Abstract:
Indoor navigation technology is needed to support seamless mobility for the visually impaired. This paper describes the construction and evaluation of an inertial dead reckoning navigation system that provides real-time auditory guidance along mapped routes. Inertial dead reckoning is a navigation technique coupling step counting together with heading estimation to compute changes in position at each step. The research described here outlines the development and evaluation of a novel navigation system that utilizes information from the mapped route to limit the problematic error accumulation inherent in traditional dead reckoning approaches. The prototype system consists of a wireless inertial sensor unit, placed at the users’ hip, which streams readings to a smartphone processing a navigation algorithm. Pilot human trials were conducted assessing system efficacy by studying route-following performance with blind and sighted subjects using the navigation system with real-time guidance, versus offline verbal directions.