skip to main content
US FlagAn official website of the United States government
dot gov icon
Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.
https lock icon
Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( lock ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Explore Research Products in the PAR
It may take a few hours for recently added research products to appear in PAR search results.


Title: IBeaconMap: Automated Indoor Space Representation for Beacon-Based Wayfinding
Traditionally, there have been few options for navigational aids for the blind and visually impaired (BVI) in large indoor spaces. Some recent indoor navigation systems allow users equipped with smartphones to interact with low cost Bluetooth-based beacons deployed strategically within the indoor space of interest to navigate their surroundings. A major challenge in deploying such beacon-based navigation systems is the need to employ a time and labor-expensive beacon planning process to identify potential beacon placement locations and arrive at a topological structure representing the indoor space. This work presents a technique called IBeaconMap for creating such topological structures to use with beacon-based navigation that only needs the floor plans of the indoor spaces of interest.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1951864
PAR ID:
10290516
Author(s) / Creator(s):
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Lecture Notes in Computer Science - Special Issue on International Conference on Computers Helping People
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
More Like this
  1. (, Workshop on Hacking Blind Navigation at CHI 2019)
    This paper presents a brief overview of the various (related) research the author has been involved with in the area of navigation and wayfinding for people with visual impairments. The first major piece of research presented is that of the building and deployment of a beacon-based indoor navigation and wayfinding system called GuideBeacon for people with visual impairments. The second major piece of research presented is a broader community-based effort called CityGuide to enable various location-based services (including navigation and wayfinding) in both indoor and outdoor environments for people with disabilities. The paper concludes by summarizing a specific challenge in the area that warrant future research attention. 
    more » « less
  2. ; ; ; ; ; ; (, IRI2020 - The 21st IEEE International Conference on Information Reuse and Integration for Data Science)
    We propose an accessible indoor navigation application. The solution integrates information of floor plans, Bluetooth beacons, Wi-Fi/cellular data connectivity, 2D/3D visual models, and user preferences. Hybrid models of interiors are created in a modeling stage with Wi-Fi/ cellular data connectivity, beacon signal strength, and a 3D spatial model. This data is collected, as the modeler walks through the building, and is mapped to the floor plan. Client-server architecture allows scaling to large areas by lazy-loading models according to beacon signals and/or adjacent region proximity. During the navigation stage, a user with the designed mobile app is localized within the floor plan, using visual, connectivity, and user preference data, along an optimal route to their destination. User interfaces for both modeling and navigation use visual, audio, and haptic feedback for targeted users. While the current pandemic event precludes our user study, we describe its design and preliminary results. 
    more » « less
  3. ; ; ; (, IEEE)
    Indoor navigation in complex building environments poses significant challenges, particularly for individuals who are unfamiliar with their surroundings. Mixed reality (MR) technologies have emerged as a promising solution to enhance situational awareness and facilitate navigation within indoor spaces. However, there is a lack of spatial data for indoor environments, including outdated floor plans and limited real-time operational data. This paper presents the development of a mixed-reality application for indoor building navigation and evacuation. The application uses feature extraction for location sensing and situational awareness to provide accurate and reliable navigation in any indoor environment using Microsoft HoloLens. The application can track the user's position and orientation and give the user-specific information on how to evacuate the building. This information is then used to generate navigation instructions for the user. We demonstrate how this mixed reality HoloLens application can provide spatially contextualized 3D visualizations that promote spatial knowledge acquisition and situational awareness. These 3D visualizations are developed as an emergency evacuation and navigation tool to aid the building occupants in safe and quick evacuation. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the application, providing 3D visualizations of multilevel spaces and aiding individuals in understanding their position and evacuation path during emergencies. We believe that adopting mixed reality technologies, such as the HoloLens, can greatly enhance individuals' ability to navigate large-scale environments during emergencies by promoting spatial knowledge acquisition and supporting cognitive mapping. 
    more » « less
  4. ; ; ; ; ; (, IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications)
    Indoor navigation systems are very useful in large complex indoor environments such as shopping malls. Current systems focus on improving indoor localization accuracy and must be combined with an accurate labeled floor plan to provide usable indoor navigation services. Such labeled floor plans are often unavailable or involve a prohibitive cost to manually obtain. In this paper, we present IndoorWaze, a novel crowdsourcing-based context-aware indoor navigation system that can automatically generate an accurate context-aware floor plan with labeled indoor POIs for the first time in literature. IndoorWaze combines the Wi-Fi fingerprints of indoor walkers with the Wi-Fi fingerprints and POI labels provided by POI employees to produce a high-fidelity labeled floor plan. As a lightweight crowdsourcing-based system, IndoorWaze involves very little effort from indoor walkers and POI employees. We prototype IndoorWaze on Android smartphones and evaluate it in a large shopping mall. Our results show that IndoorWaze can generate a high-fidelity labeled floor plan, in which all the stores are correctly labeled and arranged, all the pathways and crossings are correctly shown, and the median estimation error for the store dimension is below 12%. 
    more » « less
  5. ; ; (, The 21st International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility)
    GPS accuracy is poor in indoor environments and around buildings. Thus, reading and following signs still remains the most common mechanism for providing and receiving wayfinding information in such spaces. This puts individuals who are blind or visually impaired (BVI) at a great disadvantage. This work designs, implements, and evaluates a wayfinding system and smartphone application called CityGuide that can be used by BVI individuals to navigate their surroundings beyond what is possible with just a GPS-based system. CityGuide enables an individual to query and get turn-by-turn shortest route directions from an indoor location to an outdoor location. CityGuide leverages recently developed indoor wayfinding solutions in conjunction with GPS signals to provide a seamless indoor-outdoor navigation and wayfinding system that guides a BVI individual to their desired destination through the shortest route. Evaluations of CityGuide with BVI human subjects navigating between an indoor starting point to an outdoor destination within an unfamiliar university campus scenario showed it to be effective in reducing end-to-end navigation times and distances of almost all participants. 
    more » « less
  • Citation Formats
  • MLA
  • APA
  • Chicago
  • BibTeX
  • Save / Share this Record
  • Send to Email