Sensory Augmentation for the Visually Impaired - A Novel Navigation System.

Abstract

Recent reports by the World Health Organization (WHO) estimate that over 2.2 billion people worldwide are affected by visual impairment (VI), with prevalence up to four times higher in low- and middle-income regions. Independent mobility is essential for quality of life, yet traditional mobility aids such as white canes, guide dogs, and human assistance remain constrained by limited environmental awareness and functionality. This research investigates how Electronic Travel Aids (ETAs) can provide accurate, timely, and comprehensive environmental information to support safe navigation. This study proposes a novel multi-node ETA framework comprising three wirelessly connected wearable nodes integrated into a glasses, belt, and cane platform. Guided by Orientation and Mobility principles and Hall’s proxemic theory, the framework distributes sensing across the body to maximise environmental coverage while reducing blind spots. The system integrates ultrasonic sensors, LiDAR, inertial measurement units, computer vision, and artificial intelligence to provide real-time obstacle detection, object classification, spatial interpretation, and multimodal audio and haptic feedback. The methodology comprises hardware evaluation, sensor placement optimisation, system implementation, and experimental validation. Experimental evaluation used a custom-designed autonomous test rig replicating human posture and cane motion under controlled laboratory conditions, enabling objective and repeatable assessment. Static and dynamic experiments evaluated power consumption, obstacle detection accuracy, object classification, latency, inertial stability, and system responsiveness. Results demonstrate reliable obstacle detection across head-, torso-, and ground-level regions, end-to-end response times below the 500 ms design objective, and detection accuracy within predefined performance targets. The autonomous evaluation platform further contributes a repeatable methodology for benchmarking ETA systems before human participant studies. The research contributes a novel multi-platform wearable ETA architecture, a usercentred sensor placement framework grounded in spatial perception theory, and an autonomous evaluation methodology that advances the design and objective validation of next-generation assistive navigation systems for individuals with visual impairment.