Navigation Guidance for People With Vision Impairment

The project is intended to accomplish five main objectives in terms of its potential for technical innovation and commercial application in the field of navigation aid for blind or visually impaired persons. The first objective is to provide a navigational aid that can track the location of a blind person anywhere, including areas where a global positioning system (GPS) is not available or not reliable (e.g., indoors, in urban areas with tall buildings, etc.). The second is to look ahead in time and space to plan a route that allows a visually impaired person to get to a destination, then to adaptively update the route based on vision system recognized obstacles that are to be avoided, such as people or construction within the path (a concept know in robotics as Event Horizon). The third is to take gestural input and provide natural route guidance based on tactile stimuli (instead of relying solely on auditory or visual instructions). The fourth objective is to use computer vision techniques to verify that the user has reached the correct destination, as well as to find stairs, elevators (buttons), hallways, and doors in the visual scope to help with navigation. The final objective is to take input from and provide input to intelligent traffic systems (for example, the ability to communicate with drivers to send them alerts when they are getting close to a blind person who is crossing the street).

• Record URL:
  http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/research/tfhrc/projects/projectsdb/projectdetails.cfm?projectid=FHWA-PROJ-12-0107
• Supplemental Notes:
  • Program Information: Exploratory Advanced Research

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Active
• Sponsor Organizations:

  Federal Highway Administration

  1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Project Managers:

  Wilder, Carole

• Start Date: 20120912
• Expected Completion Date: 20130831
• Actual Completion Date: 0

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Audible pedestrian signals; Blind persons; Global Positioning System; Intelligent transportation systems; Navigation systems; Pedestrian movement; Pedestrian safety; Route guidance
• Subject Areas: Data and Information Technology; Pedestrians and Bicyclists; Society;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01576047
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: Department of Transportation
• Files: RIP, USDOT
• Created Date: Sep 22 2015 3:44PM