Related papers: WanderGuide: Indoor Map-less Robotic Guide for Exp…
Interactive streetscape mapping tools such as Google Street View (GSV) and Meta Mapillary enable users to virtually navigate and experience real-world environments via immersive 360{\deg} imagery but remain fundamentally inaccessible to…
As able-bodied people, we often take our vision for granted. For people who are visually impaired, however, their disability can have a significant impact on their daily lives. We are developing proprietary headgear that will help visually…
The difficulty and consequent fear of travel is one of the most disabling consequences of blindness and severe vision impairment, affecting confidence and quality of life. Traditional tactile graphics are vital in the Orientation and…
This paper details a system for fast visual exploration and search without prior map information. We leverage frontier based planning with both LiDAR and visual sensing and augment it with a perception module that contextually labels points…
We propose a robotic learning system for autonomous exploration and navigation in unexplored environments. We are motivated by the idea that even an unseen environment may be familiar from previous experiences in similar environments. The…
The navigation of indoor spaces poses difficult challenges for individuals with visual impairments, as it requires processing of sensory information, dealing with uncertainties, and relying on assistance. To tackle these challenges, we…
As social virtual reality (VR) grows more popular, addressing accessibility for blind and low vision (BLV) users is increasingly critical. Researchers have proposed an AI "sighted guide" to help users navigate VR and answer their questions,…
Finding obstacle-free paths in unknown environments is a big navigation issue for visually impaired people and autonomous robots. Previous works focus on obstacle avoidance, however they do not have a general view of the environment they…
Grasping constitutes a critical challenge for visually impaired people. To address this problem, we developed a tactile bracelet that assists in grasping by guiding the user's hand to a target object using vibration commands. Here we…
To perform tasks well in a new domain, one must first know something about it. This paper reports on a robot controller for navigation through unfamiliar indoor worlds. Based on spatial affordances, it integrates planning with reactive…
According to the World Health Organization, visual impairment is estimated to affect approximately 2.2 billion people worldwide. The visually impaired must currently rely on navigational aids to replace their sense of sight, like a white…
People who are blind or have low vision (BLV) may hesitate to travel independently in unfamiliar environments due to uncertainty about the physical landscape. While most tools focus on in-situ navigation, those exploring pre-travel…
Mobile robot navigation is typically regarded as a geometric problem, in which the robot's objective is to perceive the geometry of the environment in order to plan collision-free paths towards a desired goal. However, a purely geometric…
Navigation in new or unknown environments is vital, especially for visually impaired individuals. While many solutions exist, few are tailored to specific disabilities, often due to limited collaboration with handicap users in the design…
People with blindness and low vision (pBLV) experience significant challenges when locating final destinations or targeting specific objects in unfamiliar environments. Furthermore, besides initially locating and orienting oneself to a…
Nature plays a crucial role in human health and well-being, but little is known about how blind people experience and relate to it. We conducted a survey of nature relatedness with blind (N=20) and sighted (N=20) participants, along with…
People navigating in unfamiliar buildings take advantage of myriad visual, spatial and semantic cues to efficiently achieve their navigation goals. Towards equipping computational agents with similar capabilities, we introduce Pathdreamer,…
Robots are increasingly operating in indoor environments designed for and shared with people. However, robots working safely and autonomously in uneven and unstructured environments still face great challenges. Many modern indoor…
Navigating unfamiliar environments presents significant challenges for blind and low-vision (BLV) individuals. In this work, we construct a dataset of images and goals across different scenarios such as searching through kitchens or…
In this paper, we address the problem of autonomous multi-robot mapping, exploration and navigation in unknown, GPS-denied indoor or urban environments using a swarm of robots equipped with directional sensors with limited sensing…