Integrating computer vision object recognition with location based services for the blind

Abstract

The task of moving from one place to another is a difficult challenge that involves obstacle avoidance, staying on street walks, finding doors, knowing the current location and keeping on track through the desired path. Nowadays, navigation systems are widely used to find the correct path, or the quickest, between two places. While assistive technology has contributed to the improvement of the quality of life of people with disabilities, people with visual impairment still face enormous limitations in terms of their mobility. In recent years, several approaches have been made to create systems that allow seamless tracking and navigation both in indoor and outdoor environments. However there is still an enormous lack of availability of information that can be used to assist the navigation of users with visual impairments as well as a lack of sufficient precision in terms of the estimation of the user's location. Blavigator is a navigation system designed to help users with visual impairments. In a known location, the use of object recognition algorithms can provide contextual feedback to the user and even serve as a validator to the positioning module and geographic information system of a navigation system for the visually impaired. This paper proposes a method where the use of computer vision algorithms validate the outputs of the positioning system of the Blavigator prototype. © 2014 Springer International Publishing.