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

项目摘要/摘要 此第一阶段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，旨在减少盲人和视觉上的定向和转向错误 受损(英属维尔京群岛)的导航员。定向和机动性(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 长拐杖或导犬。现代无障碍技术提供特定位置的环境描述 以及通过计算机生成的语音的导航指令。然而，在这方面有一个严重的差距 这些现有工具提供的信息。具体地说，英属维尔京群岛的行人仍然经常经历 在一些关键的非视觉引导的空间任务中遇到困难，如由于缺席而迷失方向和转向 通常由视觉提供的可靠的空间线索。既不是现代运维培训，也不是现代技术 解决了这些无处不在的、有害的可访问性问题。即使是有视力的人也可以成为 当他们感受到视觉剥夺时，例如，在突然和强烈的光照下，他们会迷失方向和转向 雾或其他低分辨率条件下的更改。研究表明，对于感知和行动任务，如 保持定向，视觉信息本质上是空间的。这表明定向行走可能是 使用其他非视觉空间感觉信息执行--只要该信息可靠且显著 给领航员。重要的是，英属维尔京群岛的导航员能够很容易地处理和使用来自 非视觉感知，尤指基于这里使用的动态地理空间触觉提示。事实上，远端 食指指垫是细粒度动态空间信息的极佳传感器。这启发了我们 使用触觉作为消除转向的潜在解决方案，这是本项目中利用的，以提供安全 和高效的寻路。此外，该项目利用内置的传感器技术 智能手机，以传递精确和准确的动态空间信息-室内和室外-这是 意义重大，因为智能手机平台已经被广泛接受和理解为导航辅助工具 英属维尔京群岛的行人。这项第一阶段研究的目的是进一步发展和检验 室内和室外的动态触觉指点，消除转向。最终，通过感知 技术，直观的智能手机应用程序，以及提供细粒度、 通过映射的路线和目的地动态更新空间提示，英属维尔京群岛的导航员将能够步行 精确地沿着他们预定的空间定义的路线。我们的进步包括一种微型可穿戴地图 计算机，再加上令人鼓舞的初步结果，证明了在1度和 一米或更好的误差，这在室内和繁忙的十字路口特别有用，因为在这些地方 位置估计对于保证英属维尔京群岛行人沿其预定路线和目的地的安全至关重要。

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.