Indoor-Guided Navigation for People Who Are Blind: Crowdsourcing for Route Mapping and Assistance
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 necessa...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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MDPI AG
2022-01-01
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| Series: | Applied Sciences |
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| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/12/1/523 |
| _version_ | 1797499493634015232 |
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| author | Darius Plikynas Audrius Indriulionis Algirdas Laukaitis Leonidas Sakalauskas |
| author_facet | Darius Plikynas Audrius Indriulionis Algirdas Laukaitis Leonidas Sakalauskas |
| author_sort | Darius Plikynas |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | 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. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-10T03:48:10Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-4b72f7183a7a4ffd906cc245f20a43e0 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2076-3417 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-10T03:48:10Z |
| publishDate | 2022-01-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Applied Sciences |
| spelling | doaj.art-4b72f7183a7a4ffd906cc245f20a43e02023-11-23T11:14:25ZengMDPI AGApplied Sciences2076-34172022-01-0112152310.3390/app12010523Indoor-Guided Navigation for People Who Are Blind: Crowdsourcing for Route Mapping and AssistanceDarius Plikynas0Audrius Indriulionis1Algirdas Laukaitis2Leonidas Sakalauskas3Department of Business Technologies and Entrepreneurship, Vilnius Gediminas Technical University, 10223 Vilnius, LithuaniaDepartment of Business Technologies and Entrepreneurship, Vilnius Gediminas Technical University, 10223 Vilnius, LithuaniaDepartment of Information Systems, Vilnius Gediminas Technical University, 10223 Vilnius, LithuaniaFaculty of Natural Sciences, Klaipeda University, 92294 Klaipeda, LithuaniaThis 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.https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/12/1/523electronic travelling aidsguided navigationblind and severely visually impairedsocial networkingcrowdsourcingcomputer vision |
| spellingShingle | Darius Plikynas Audrius Indriulionis Algirdas Laukaitis Leonidas Sakalauskas Indoor-Guided Navigation for People Who Are Blind: Crowdsourcing for Route Mapping and Assistance Applied Sciences electronic travelling aids guided navigation blind and severely visually impaired social networking crowdsourcing computer vision |
| title | Indoor-Guided Navigation for People Who Are Blind: Crowdsourcing for Route Mapping and Assistance |
| title_full | Indoor-Guided Navigation for People Who Are Blind: Crowdsourcing for Route Mapping and Assistance |
| title_fullStr | Indoor-Guided Navigation for People Who Are Blind: Crowdsourcing for Route Mapping and Assistance |
| title_full_unstemmed | Indoor-Guided Navigation for People Who Are Blind: Crowdsourcing for Route Mapping and Assistance |
| title_short | Indoor-Guided Navigation for People Who Are Blind: Crowdsourcing for Route Mapping and Assistance |
| title_sort | indoor guided navigation for people who are blind crowdsourcing for route mapping and assistance |
| topic | electronic travelling aids guided navigation blind and severely visually impaired social networking crowdsourcing computer vision |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/12/1/523 |
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