Development of a haptic guidance interface for eliminating veering during indoor and outdoor navigation by blind and visually impaired travelers

开发触觉引导界面，以消除盲人和视障旅行者在室内和室外导航期间的转向

• 批准号: 10081135
• 负责人: NICHOLAS A GIUDICE
• 金额: $ 21.86万
• 依托单位: GLOBAL TACTILE, LLC
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2020-09-01 至 2022-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10081135
• 关键词: 3D Print; Address; Advanced Development; Anxiety; Attention; Blindness; Canes; Canis familiaris; Cellular Phone; Cognitive; Communications aid for the blind; Complement; Computer software; Computers; Consumption; Coupled; Cues; Dangerousness; Destinations; Detection; Development; Devices; Disorientation; Distal; Educational Status; Effectiveness; Environment; Eye; Face; Feedback; Fingers; Fogs; Goals; Grain; Guidelines; Individual; Information Dissemination; Instruction; Intuition; Lead; Lighting; Location; Magnetism; Maps; Mental Depression; Methods; Modernization; Motion; Navigation System; Outcomes Research; Perception; Performance; Phase; Pilot Projects; Population; Positioning Attribute; Process; Protocols documentation; Quality of life; Recovery; Research; Resolution; Route; Safety; Sensory; Series; Small Business Innovation Research Grant; Social isolation; Speech; Stimulus; Surveys; Tactile; Technology; Time; Training; Transducers; Travel; Unemployment; Update; Validation; Vision; Visual impairment; Visually Impaired Students; Visuospatial; Walking; Wearable Computer; Wireless Technology; Work; base; blind; computer generated; design; efficacy testing; experience; experimental study; haptic interface; haptics; improved; indexing; innovation; meter; navigation aid; novel; phase 1 study; prototype; receptor; recruit; sensor; sensor technology; smartphone Application; socioeconomics; stem; tool; usability; vibration; visual deprivation; visual feedback; visual information; way finding

Project Summary/Abstract The primary goal of this Phase I SBIR project is to advance development and perform efficacy testing of an innovative accessibility technology that aims to mitigate orientation and veering errors of blind and visually impaired (BVI) navigators. Orientation and Mobility (O&M) training teaches BVI students how to process and use information for navigating environments, and how to handle obstacle detection and avoidance using the long cane or dog guide. Modern accessibility technologies provide position-specific environmental descriptions and navigation instructions through computer-generated speech. However, there is a critical gap in the information provided by these existing tools. Specifically, BVI pedestrians still frequently experience difficulties in some key non-visually guided spatial tasks, such as disorientation and veering due to the absence of reliable spatial cues normally provided by vision. Neither modern O&M training nor current technologies have solved these omnipresent and detrimental accessibility issues. Even sighted people can become disoriented and veer when they experience visual deprivation, e.g., during sudden and drastic illumination changes, in fog, or other low-resolution conditions. Research shows that for perception and action tasks such as maintaining orientation, visual information is inherently spatial. This suggests that oriented walking could be performed using other, nonvisual spatial sensory information—as long as the information is reliable and salient to the navigator. Importantly, BVI navigators are able to readily process and use spatial information from nonvisual sensing, especially on the basis of dynamic geospatial haptic cuing as is used here. Indeed, the distal pad of the index finger is an excellent transducer of fine-grained dynamic spatial information. This inspired our use of haptics as a potential solution for eliminating veering, which is harnessed in this project to provide safe and efficient path finding. Furthermore, this project leverages sensor technologies that are built into smartphones to convey precise and accurate dynamic spatial information—indoors and outdoors—which is significant because the smartphone platform is already widely embraced and understood as a navigational aid by BVI pedestrians. The purpose of this Phase I study is to further develop and examine the effectiveness of dynamic tactile pointing for indoor and outdoor wayfinding to eliminate veering. Ultimately, through sensing technologies, an intuitive smartphone application, and a novel haptic interface that delivers fine-grained, dynamically updated spatial cues through mapped routes and destinations, BVI navigators will be able to walk precisely along their intended spatially defined routes. Our advancements include a tiny wearable mapping computer, plus encouraging preliminary results that demonstrate precise wayfinding within one-degree and one-meter error or better, which is especially helpful indoors and in busy intersections where fine-grained position estimation is critical to keep BVI pedestrians safely along their intended routes and destinations.

项目总结/摘要 这个第一阶段SBIR项目的主要目标是推进开发和执行有效性测试， 创新的无障碍技术，旨在减轻盲人和视觉障碍者的方向和转向错误， 英属维尔京群岛（BVI）导航员。定向和流动性（O&M）培训教BVI学生如何处理和 使用导航环境的信息，以及如何使用 长手杖或导盲犬。现代可访问性技术提供了特定位置的环境描述 和导航指令。然而，在这方面存在着一个关键的差距。 这些现有工具提供的信息。具体来说，英属维尔京群岛的行人仍然经常遇到 在一些关键的非视觉引导的空间任务的困难，如定向障碍和转向，由于缺乏 视觉提供的可靠空间线索。既没有现代的运维培训，也没有当前的技术 已经解决了这些无处不在和有害的可访问性问题。即使是有视力的人 迷失方向和转向时，他们的经验，视觉剥夺，例如，在突然剧烈的光照下 变化，雾，或其他低分辨率条件。研究表明，对于感知和行动任务， 保持方向，视觉信息固有地是空间的。这表明定向行走可能是 使用其他非视觉空间感觉信息进行-只要信息是可靠和突出的 导航员。重要的是，BVI导航员能够轻松处理和使用来自 非视觉感测，特别是基于如这里所使用的动态地理空间触觉提示。事实上， 食指的指腹是细粒度动态空间信息的优秀传感器。这启发了我们的 使用触觉作为消除转向的潜在解决方案，在该项目中利用触觉提供安全的 和高效的路径查找。此外，该项目还利用了内置于 智能手机传达精确和准确的动态空间信息-室内和室外-这是 重要的是，智能手机平台已经被广泛接受，并被理解为一种导航工具 BVI行人第一阶段研究的目的，是进一步发展和研究 室内和室外寻路的动态触觉指向，以消除转向。最终，通过感知 技术，一个直观的智能手机应用程序，和一个新颖的触觉界面，提供细粒度， 通过地图上的路线和目的地动态更新空间线索，BVI导航员将能够步行 精确地沿着它们预期的空间限定的路线。我们的进步包括一个微型的可穿戴地图 计算机，加上令人鼓舞的初步结果，证明精确寻路在一度， 一米的误差或更好，这是特别有帮助的室内和忙碌繁忙的十字路口， 位置估计对于保持BVI行人安全地沿着他们的预定路线和目的地是至关重要的。