V-Eye: A Vision-Based Navigation System for the Visually Impaired

Numerous systems for helping visually impaired people navigate in unfamiliar places have been proposed. However, few can detect and warn about moving obstacles, provide correct orientation in real time, or support navigation between indoor and outdoor spaces. Accordingly, this paper proposes V-Eye, which fulfills these needs by utilizing a novel global localization method (VB-GPS) and image-segmentation techniques to achieve better scene understanding with a single camera. Our experiments establish that the proposed system can reliably provide precise locations and orientation information (with a median error of approximately 0.27 m and 0.95°); detect unpredictable obstacles; and support navigating both within and between indoor and outdoor environments. The results of a user-experience study of V-eye further indicate that it helped the participants not only with navigation, but also improved their awareness of obstacles, enhanced their spatial awareness more generally, and led them to feel more secure and independent while walking.