NavPal: Technology Solutions for Enhancing Urban Navigation for Blind Travelers

In this report, we describe our vision for computing technology tools that can enhance the safety and independence of blind and visually impaired people navigating unfamiliar indoor environments. We describe the overall roadmap for our work, along with the research to date on each component of this roadmap. This set of tools, known as “NavPal”, combines a variety of techniques and technologies including robots, crowdsourcing, advanced path-planning and multi-modal interfaces. All of these tools and the framework have been informed, tested, and endorsed by many blind and visually impaired adults, and by several Orientation and Mobility experts.