Developing a Self-Calibrating Navigation System to Address the Orientation Challenges faced by Older People with Visual Impairments

开发自校准导航系统以解决视力障碍老年人面临的定向挑战

• 批准号: 10025229
• 金额: $ 173.8万
• 依托单位: WEWALK LIMITED
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Collaborative R&D
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2022 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=10025229
• 关键词: Developing; Self; Calibrating; Navigation; System

There are over 2 million older people with sight loss in the UK(AgeUK\_2015); globally, it's estimated to be 253 million(Ackland\_et\_al\_2017). As the population ages, this figure will increase as sight loss disproportionally impacts older people. People with sight loss benefit from the white cane to get around, often in conjunction with smartphone navigation apps. These can include accessibility features such as screen readers, colour filters, and dexterity tools. However, a long cane can only detect obstacles below knee-height and within approximately 1m of the user. Moreover, most smartphone interfaces are not developed with sufficient compatibility for these accessibility features, limiting their usefulness. This makes it particularly challenging for visually impaired individuals(VIIs) to navigate safely in busy urban areas, especially where cars, bicycles, and pedestrians are found in close proximity.To address this challenge, WeWALK have developed a revolutionary "smart" device that screws onto a user's existing cane, upgrading a tool relied on by over 50 million people. Our cane detects obstacles at knee-to-head height and uniquely connects to a user's smartphone to provide audio-based navigation via integration with Google Maps, Moovit, and Microsoft services. Efforts to enhance WeWALK's indoor positioning by the project partners have uncovered that seamless wayfinding in all environments, including outdoors, is possible with situational awareness. This project will address this challenge, including the last-mile problem where individuals fail to locate their final destination or transport route, creating a fully autonomous, comprehensive, safety-critical, and accessible navigation system for older VIIs.Recent assistive smartphone apps have included computer vision for object recognition in addition to environmental mapping and localisation through the concept of simultaneous localisation and mapping (SLAM). Their underlying principle can be very useful in solving WeWALK's navigation constraints; however, to date, they have not demonstrated adequate system performance(accuracy/reliability/usability) for use in a safety-critical application such as enabling a VII to navigate, avoiding hazards, around an urban environment.We will address the technical/safety challenges that have prevented widespread uptake of computer vision-aided navigation including environmental mapping and overall situational awareness for older and VIIs. We will build on the existing WeWALK architecture with new hardware and software, incorporating spatial sensing and advanced data analytics, providing safety-critical functionality and usability frameworks. This project has the potential to play a vital role in ensuring that the rising numbers of visually impaired people have full access to the urban spaces where we live, work, and play.

英国有超过200万老年人患有视力丧失（2015年）;全球估计为2.53亿（Ackland\_et\_al\_2017）。随着人口老龄化，这一数字将随着视力丧失对老年人的影响而增加。视力丧失的人受益于白色手杖四处走动，通常与智能手机导航应用程序相结合。这些可以包括辅助功能，如屏幕阅读器，滤色器和灵巧工具。然而，长手杖只能探测到膝盖以下的障碍物，并且距离用户大约1米。此外，大多数智能手机界面的开发没有为这些辅助功能提供足够的兼容性，限制了它们的实用性。这使得视障人士（VIIs）在忙碌的城市地区，尤其是在汽车、自行车和行人密集的地方，安全导航变得尤为困难。为了应对这一挑战，WeWALK开发了一种革命性的“智能”设备，可以拧到用户现有的手杖上，升级了一种超过5000万人依赖的工具。我们的手杖可以检测膝盖到头部高度的障碍物，并独特地连接到用户的智能手机，通过与谷歌地图，Moovit和微软服务的集成提供基于音频的导航。项目合作伙伴在增强WeWALK室内定位方面的努力发现，通过态势感知，在包括户外在内的所有环境中都可以实现无缝寻路。该项目将解决这一挑战，包括个人无法找到最终目的地或运输路线的最后一英里问题，为旧VIIs创建一个完全自主、全面、安全关键和可访问的导航系统。最近的辅助智能手机应用程序除了通过同步定位和地图（SLAM）概念进行环境地图和定位之外，还包括用于对象识别的计算机视觉。它们的基本原理在解决WeWALK的导航约束时非常有用;然而，迄今为止，它们还没有表现出足够的系统性能（准确性/可靠性/可用性），用于安全关键应用，例如使VII能够导航，避免危险，我们将解决阻碍计算机视觉广泛应用的技术/安全挑战-辅助导航，包括环境绘图和老年人和VII的整体态势感知。我们将在现有WeWALK架构的基础上，采用新的硬件和软件，结合空间传感和先进的数据分析，提供安全关键功能和可用性框架。这个项目有可能在确保越来越多的视障人士能够充分进入我们生活、工作和娱乐的城市空间方面发挥至关重要的作用。