Map Data Representation for Indoor Navigation by Blind People

Abstract

A map is a basic element that is used for indoor and outdoor navigation which helps people find information about locations, landmarks, and routes. By the use of GPS, outdoor travelling is easier with free maps e.g. Google Maps providing geographic information during navigation. For indoors, indoor spatial information is not much informed by Google Maps and neither do commercial products that are working on indoor navigation systems. Thus, the lack of information and detail of buildings may not cause so many problems if it is used by sighted people. For visually impaired people, it causes a lot of problems due to a lack of information and detail about interior of the buildings. This leads to the research question of finding an appropriate framework for map data representation for constructing indoor maps aimed to promote indoor navigation by visually impaired people, as well as by robots and autonomous systems. Prior to the design of the framework, we design the framework with eleven components, extending seven components of the previous study by a further four covering the parameters of disability. The framework has been designed with a reference model where each layer of which is responsible for a different function. Using this map data representation of indoor spaces, many applications can be extended to provide a range of indoor-based applications. For example: indoor navigation by people with disabilities, robots and autonomous systems, security and surveillance, and context and spatial awareness.