Publication
CHI 2019
Conference paper

BBEEP: A sonic collision avoidance system for blind travellers and nearby pedestrians

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Abstract

We present an assistive suitcase system, BBeep, for supporting blind people when walking through crowded environments. BBeep uses pre-emptive sound notifcations to help clear a path by alerting both the user and nearby pedestrians about the potential risk of collision. BBeep triggers notifcations by tracking pedestrians, predicting their future position in real-time, and provides sound notifcations only when it anticipates a future collision. We investigate how diferent types and timings of sound afect nearby pedestrian behavior. In our experiments, we found that sound emission timing has a signifcant impact on nearby pedestrian trajectories when compared to diferent sound types. Based on these fndings, we performed a real-world user study at an international airport, where blind participants navigated with the suitcase in crowded areas. We observed that the proposed system signifcantly reduces the number of imminent collisions.

Date

Publication

CHI 2019