A new approach for pedestrian navigation for mobility impaired users based on multimodal annotation of geographical data

Abstract

Although much effort is spent in developing navigation systems for pedestrians, many users with special needs are mostly excluded due to a lack of appropriate geographical data such as landmarks, waypoints, or obstacles. Such data is necessary for computing suitable routes which might differ from being the shortest or fastest one. In this paper, the concept of multimodal annotation of geographical data for personalized navigation is described. Direct input by the user is combined with data derived from the observation of the user's LOMModality (Location, Orientation, and Movement) to annotate geographical data. Based on this data and data derived from other users of the same user group, suitable routes even in unknown territory can be calculated. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007.