Route Planning and Navigation Aid for Blind and Visually Impaired People

The lack of visual perception makes outdoor wayfinding an extremely challenging task for Blind and Visually Impaired People (BVIP), especially in urban environments where the conditions on streets and pavements are highly dynamic. The unpredicted nature of obstacles and other types of hazards causes anxiety to BVIP. In this paper, we present an assistive mobile application which provides route planning and real-time navigation taking into account both the permanent and transient obstacles reported by the users themselves (i.e., adopting a crowdsourcing approach) through a specially designed user interface. Subsequently, route planning queries are handled taking into account current obstacles to derive BVIP-friendly routes. In-progress navigation sessions are instantly updated in case they are affected by reported incidents. The application also provides a volunteer mode which enables BVIP to receive real-time assistance from sighted citizens through a video call. The application's functionalities have been evaluated by implementing three usage scenarios.