GPS accuracy is poor in indoor environments and around buildings. Thus, reading and following signs still remains the most common mechanism for providing and receiving wayfinding information in such spaces. This puts individuals who are blind or visually impaired (BVI) at a great disadvantage. This work designs, implements, and evaluates a wayfinding system and smartphone application called CityGuide that can be used by BVI individuals to navigate their surroundings beyond what is possible with just a GPS-based system. CityGuide enables an individual to query and get turn-by-turn shortest route directions from an indoor location to an outdoor location. CityGuide leverages recently developed indoor wayfinding solutions in conjunction with GPS signals to provide a seamless indoor-outdoor navigation and wayfinding system that guides a BVI individual to their desired destination through the shortest route. Evaluations of CityGuide with BVI human subjects navigating between an indoor starting point to an outdoor destination within an unfamiliar university campus scenario showed it to be effective in reducing end-to-end navigation times and distances of almost all participants.

There are currently few options for navigational aids for the blind and visually impaired (BVI) in large indoor spaces. Such indoor spaces can be difficult to navigate even for the general sighted population if they are disoriented due to unfamiliarity or other reasons. This paper presents an indoor wayfinding system called GuideBeacon for the blind, visually impaired, and disoriented (BVID) that assists people in navigating between any two points within indoor environments. The GuideBeacon system allows users equipped with smartphones to interact with low cost Bluetooth-based beacons deployed strategically within the indoor space of interest to navigate their surroundings. This paper describes the technical challenges faced in designing such a system, the design decisions made in building the current version of the GuideBeacon system, the solutions developed to meet the technical challenges, and results from the evaluation of the system. Results presented in this paper obtained from field testing GuideBeacon with BVI and sighted participants suggests that it can be used by the BVID for navigation in large indoor spaces independently and effectively.