Integrating an intuitive tactical navigation solution to enable situational awareness for people with visual disabilities

Abstract

This research designed a wearable vibrotactile display for providing intuitive orientation and communication cues to aid in navigation for the visually disabled. The device’s signals were designed to communicate the three levels of situation awareness (SA; perceive, comprehend, and project) intuitively, as if one was being guided by a partner’s hand. We evaluated the effectiveness of this device in a human subject experiment with fully blind participants. Participants were tested in an open 15 ft x 15 ft space with no objects for reference. Performance with the vibrotactile display was compared against participants’ normal methods of navigation based on performance measures (navigation, accuracy, and time). Subjective measures of mental workload, situation awareness, and usability were collected; as were surveys designed to understand how participants’ categorized tactor signals into SA levels. Results showed that the tactile design enhanced accuracy, but increased navigation time. This design was comparable to participants’ standard methods for mental workload, SA, and usability. The paper discusses the significance of these results for navigation aids for the visually disabled. It also explores the implications for navigation support in other visually challenging environments.