Apps help blind users navigate indoors

The new technology orientates using existing smartphone sensors

Spotted: Accessible technology has come on leaps and bounds in recent years, with advanced GPS helping people living with disabilities like blindness or visual impairment navigate more independently. However, this tech is generally catered to outdoor use, with reliable indoor navigation proving much more of a challenge. Now, a UC Santa Cruz research team hopes to change that.

Their indoor navigation system relies on two mobile apps. The first, a wayfinding app, reads the map of the inside of a building and then uses a phone’s internal sensors, like those used to count a user’s steps, to provide directions to the desired destination.

The second, a backtracking app, can invert a previously taken route to lead its user back to where they started. Both apps also use particle filtering to ensure that slight inaccuracies in the phone’s (and navigator’s) orientation do not confuse the app and lead to it misinterpreting where the user is standing.

The walls of most buildings distort GPS signals, but by utilising phones’ inertial sensors, people with disabilities can navigate buildings without the assistance of specially outfitted devices. Although they might still require assistance from a cane or guide dog to mitigate tracking errors, the navigation systems do not need much input, using a voice on the phone and additional vibrations on a connected smartwatch to give instructions, so users can focus on safety.

In the future, the research team envisions significant upgrades to the apps, including the implementation of AI features that allow users to receive navigation instructions from a picture of their surroundings. They are also working on improving the ability to access building maps, potentially through an open-source software system.

Written By: Joshua Solomon