Navigation Assistance for the Visually Impaired Using RGB-D Sensor With Range Expansion

Abstract

Navigation Assistance for Visually Impaired (NAVI) refers to systems that are able to assist or guide people with vision loss, ranging from partially sighted to totally blind, by means of sound commands. In this paper, a new system for NAVI is presented based on visual and range information. Instead of using several sensors, we choose one device, a consumer RGB-D camera and take advantage of both range and visual information. In particular, the main contribution is the combination of depth information with image intensities resulting in the robust expansion of the range-based floor segmentation. On the one hand, depth information, which is reliable but limited to a short range, is enhanced with the long-range visual information. On the other hand, the difficult and prone to error image processing is eased and improved with depth information. The proposed system detects and classifies the main structural elements of the scene providing the user with obstacle-free paths in order to navigate safely across unknown scenarios. The proposed system has been tested on a wide variety of scenarios and datasets, giving successful results and showing that the system is robust and works in challenging indoor environments.

Indoor/outdoor navigation system based on possibilistic traversable area segmentation for visually impaired people

“…Aladren et al [6] have proposed a system that detects and classifies the main structural elements of the scene providing the user with obstacle-free paths in order to navigate safely across unknown scenarios. This approach is based on RGB-D camera.…”

“…The problem encountered in obstacle detection may often be reduced to a problem of traversable area segmentation. The state of the art of traversable area extraction for navigation assistance can be classified into two categories: -The first category, where obstacle detection is carried out by considering depth information [3, 5, 6 and 7]: Accordingly, depth map is obtained from various capture devices, such as stereovision cameras [3,4], or Kinect sensors [5,6]. In [3], ground plane was estimated from stereo camera image using RANSAC (RANdom SAmple Consensus) algorithm [4], combined with least-squares optimization.…”

“…In [5], authors use the disparity map provided by the stereo camera, detects the ground plane applying a RANSAC algorithm in the v-disparity domain. In [6] authors use the same algorithm RANSAC is applied to depth map for determining the initial region of ground class, then a region growing method is applied to find similar colour regions. The depth map is provided by RGB-D sensor.…”

Microcontroller based Navigation System for Visually Impaired People

“…User interface is given through audio instructions and sound map information. [10] Ultrasonic navigation system enhances the independent mobility of visually impaired people. It consists of a portable device based on microcontroller with synthetic speech output and obstacle detection system using ultrasounds and vibrators.…”

High-Speed Detection of Down Staircase for Visually Impaired People Using Illuminance of Point Pattern

“…To solve this problem, existing research (1)(2)(3)(4)(5)(6)(7)(8)(9) has proposed a navigation system that leads visually impaired people on the route to their destination by detecting obstacles on the route and tracking their position using information and communication technology.…”