Michael Brock
Per Ola Kristensson
ABSTRACT
We present a system designed to help blind people navigate around obstacles. Our system perceives the environment in front of the user using a depth camera (a Microsoft Kinect). The system identifies nearby structures from the depth map and uses sonification to convey obstacle information to the user. The system has undergone a formative evaluation involving eight blind-folded participants and one blind participant. We found that our system can be learned within minutes and that participants can successfully navigate through an obstacle course with few collisions.
Supplemental Material
- Artificial vision for the totally blind. http://www.artificialvision.com/.Google Scholar
- Edwards, N., Rosenthal, J., Moberly, D., Lindsay, J., Blair, K., Krishna, S.; McDaniel, T., and Panchanathan, S. A pragmatic approach to the design and implementation of a vibrotactile belt and its applications. In Proc. HAVE 2009, IEEE Press (2009), 13--18.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Lorensen, W. E., and Cline, H. E. Marching Cubes: A high resolution 3D surface construction algorithm. In Proc. SIGGRAPH 1987, ACM Press (1987), 163--169. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Proulx, M., Stoerig, P., Ludowig, E., and Knoll, I. Seeing "where" through the ears: Effects of learning-by-doing and long-term sensory deprivation on localization based on image-to-sound substitution. PLoS ONE 3, 3 (2008), e1840.Google ScholarCross Ref
Index Terms
- Supporting blind navigation using depth sensing and sonification
Recommendations
CaBot: Designing and Evaluating an Autonomous Navigation Robot for Blind People
ASSETS '19: Proceedings of the 21st International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and AccessibilityNavigation robots have the potential to overcome some of the limitations of traditional navigation aids for blind people, specially in unfamiliar environments. In this paper, we present the design of CaBot (Carry-on roBot), an autonomous suitcase-shaped ...
Enhancing Blind Visitor’s Autonomy in a Science Museum Using an Autonomous Navigation Robot
CHI '23: Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing SystemsEnabling blind visitors to explore museum floors while feeling the facility’s atmosphere and increasing their autonomy and enjoyment are imperative for giving them a high-quality museum experience. We designed a science museum exploration system for ...
Coupled Indoor Navigation for People Who Are Blind
HRI '18: Companion of the 2018 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot InteractionThis paper presents our design of an autonomous navigation system for a mobile robot that guides people who are blind and low vision in indoor settings. It begins by presenting user studies that shaped our design of the system, moves on to describing ...
Comments