Localization Techniques for Blind People in Outdoor/Indoor Environments: Review

Abstract

One of the major challenges frequently encountered by blind people is an inability to determine their location accurately in unfamiliar outdoor and indoor environments. Localization accuracy in indoor environments and energy consumption are two of the major problems facing the localization systems. Numerous outdoor/indoor localization methods have been proposed with a view to solving this problem. A review of the published research, giving an overview of recent developments and applications of pervasive localization systems for blind people, is presented in this paper. In addition, the review highlights a number of experiments involving the deployment and operation of localization systems. The research considered in this review includes current prototypes, experimental studies, and employed algorithms over the period from 2014 to 2019. The paper identifies 29 articles describing 29 different systems which aim to improve the lifestyle of blind people. For each system, the type of implementation, type of wireless network, and employed algorithms are detailed and their problems, solutions, limitations, and gaps are highlighted. A new system is proposed to tackle the shortcomings of the existing solutions found in previous work. Thus, an integrated easy, flexible, wearable, low power consumption, and high localization accuracy system can be obtained.