A Navigation Aid for Blind People with Walking Disabilities

Many blind people require travel aids to navigate in unknown environments. However, the majority of the corresponding devices are not designed for people with walking disabilities. In this paper, we present a smart walker that does not only provide walking assistance but also enables blind users with mobility impairment to avoid obstacles. By leveraging existing robotics technologies, our system detects both positive and negative obstacles such as curbs, staircases and holes in the ground and transmits obstacle proximity information through haptic feedback. Initial experiments show that our smart walker enables human users to navigate safely in indoor and outdoor environments.