Literature Reviews

Reviewed research papers, articles, and publications relevant to digital accessibility.

• BlindPilot: A Robotic Local Navigation System that Leads Blind People to a Landmark Object

  Seita Kayukawa, Tatsuya Ishihara, Hironobu Takagi, Shigeo Morishima, Chieko Asakawa (2020) — Extended Abstracts of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA '20, Late-Breaking Work)

  Most indoor-navigation research for blind travellers has focused on what the authors call 'global' navigation — getting from a building entrance to a room, gate, or exhibit. The 'last few metres' of the journey, a body-scale interaction with a specif…

  • local navigation
  • landmark object
  • blind navigation
  • indoor navigation
  • assistive robotics
  • visual impairment
  • object detection
  • orientation and mobility
  • shared control
  • LiDAR
  • late-breaking work

• PathFinder: Designing a Map-less Navigation System for Blind People in Unfamiliar Buildings

  Masaki Kuribayashi, Tatsuya Ishihara, Daisuke Sato, Jayakorn Vongkulbhisal, Karnik Ram, Seita Kayukawa, Hironobu Takagi, Shigeo Morishima, Chieko Asakawa (2023) — Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

  Map-based indoor navigation systems for blind travellers (CaBot, NavCog, BLE-beacon apps) work well when a prebuilt map exists, but building and maintaining those maps is labour-intensive and has only been done for a tiny fraction of the world's buil…

  • map-less navigation
  • blind navigation
  • indoor navigation
  • intersection detection
  • sign recognition
  • visual impairment
  • orientation and mobility
  • participatory design
  • shared control
  • assistive robotics
  • LiDAR
  • OCR

• Guiding Blind Pedestrians in Public Spaces by Understanding Walking Behavior of Nearby Pedestrians

  Seita Kayukawa, Tatsuya Ishihara, Hironobu Takagi, Shigeo Morishima, Chieko Asakawa (2020) — Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies (IMWUT), Vol. 4, No. 3, Article 85

  Collisions with other pedestrians are one of the most common hazards for blind travellers in public space — 87.8% of blind people report colliding or nearly colliding with pedestrians, bicycles, or obstacles. White canes detect contact rather than ap…

  • blind navigation
  • collision prediction
  • pedestrian avoidance
  • visual impairment
  • audio interface
  • tactile interface
  • indoor navigation
  • orientation and mobility
  • assistive robotics
  • suitcase robot
  • LiDAR

• Corridor-Walker: Mobile Indoor Walking Assistance for Blind People to Avoid Obstacles and Recognize Intersections

  Masaki Kuribayashi, Seita Kayukawa, Jayakorn Vongkulbhisal, Chieko Asakawa, Daisuke Sato, Hironobu Takagi, Shigeo Morishima (2022) — Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction (Proc. ACM Hum.-Comput. Interact., Vol. 6, MHCI, Article 179)

  Walking an indoor corridor independently is deceptively hard for a blind traveller. Two problems compound: avoiding obstacles stacked against the wall (the same wall the traveller uses as a tactile guide) and recognising when an intersection has arri…

  • indoor navigation
  • blind navigation
  • obstacle avoidance
  • intersection detection
  • LiDAR
  • orientation and mobility
  • visual impairment
  • smartphone assistive technology
  • wayfinding
  • spatialized audio
  • vibration feedback

• Enhancing Blind Visitor's Autonomy in a Science Museum Using an Autonomous Navigation Robot

  Seita Kayukawa, Daisuke Sato, Masayuki Murata, Tatsuya Ishihara, Hironobu Takagi, Shigeo Morishima, Chieko Asakawa (2023) — Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

  Museums have historically struggled to offer blind visitors the same self-directed, exploratory experience that sighted visitors take for granted. Prior solutions — tactile tours, audio guides, or pre-fixed navigation routes — either require a human …

  • blind navigation
  • autonomous navigation robot
  • museum accessibility
  • visual impairment
  • indoor navigation
  • assistive robotics
  • social acceptance
  • wayfinding
  • LiDAR
  • human-robot interaction

• CaBot: Designing and Evaluating an Autonomous Navigation Robot for Blind People

  João Guerreiro, Daisuke Sato, Saki Asakawa, Huixu Dong, Kris M. Kitani, Chieko Asakawa (2019) — Proceedings of the 21st International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2019)

  This paper presents CaBot (Carry-on roBot), an autonomous suitcase-shaped navigation robot designed to guide blind people to destinations in unfamiliar indoor environments while avoiding obstacles. Unlike smartphone navigation apps that provide turn-…

  • navigation robot
  • blind
  • orientation and mobility
  • haptic feedback
  • LiDAR
  • computer vision
  • human-robot interaction
  • obstacle avoidance
  • bone conduction
  • indoor navigation

• A Demonstration of RASSAR: Room Accessibility and Safety Scanning in Augmented Reality

  Xia Su, Kaiming Cheng, Han Zhang, Jaewook Lee, Wyatt Olson, Jon E. Froehlich (2023) — Proceedings of the 25th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS)

  This demo paper introduces RASSAR (Room Accessibility and Safety Scanning in Augmented Reality), a mobile AR application that semi-automatically identifies, localizes, and visualizes indoor accessibility and safety issues using iPhone LiDAR sensors a…

  • augmented reality
  • computer vision
  • indoor accessibility
  • object detection
  • LiDAR
  • home safety
  • accessibility auditing
  • mobile application