Assistive Systems for Visually Impaired Persons: Challenges and Opportunities for Navigation Assistance.

The inability to see makes moving around very difficult for visually impaired persons. Due to their limited movement, they also struggle to protect themselves against moving and non-moving objects. Given the substantial rise in the population of those with vision impairments in recent years, there has been an increasing amount of research devoted to the development of assistive technologies. This review paper highlights the state-of-the-art assistive technology, tools, and systems for improving the daily lives of visually impaired people. Multi-modal mobility assistance solutions are also evaluated for both indoor and outdoor environments. Lastly, an analysis of several approaches is also provided, along with recommendations for the future.

A Comprehensive Survey on Emerging Assistive Technologies for Visually Impaired Persons: Lighting the Path with Visible Light Communications and Artificial Intelligence Innovations.

In the context in which severe visual impairment significantly affects human life, this article emphasizes the potential of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Visible Light Communications (VLC) in developing future assistive technologies. Toward this path, the article summarizes the features of some commercial assistance solutions, and debates the characteristics of VLC and AI, emphasizing their compatibility with blind individuals' needs. Additionally, this work highlights the AI potential in the efficient early detection of eye diseases. This article also reviews the existing work oriented toward VLC integration in blind persons' assistive applications, showing the existing progress and emphasizing the high potential associated with VLC use. In the end, this work provides a roadmap toward the development of an integrated AI-based VLC assistance solution for visually impaired people, pointing out the high potential and some of the steps to follow. As far as we know, this is the first comprehensive work which focuses on the integration of AI and VLC technologies in visually impaired persons' assistance domain.

A Wearable Visually Impaired Assistive System Based on Semantic Vision SLAM for Grasping Operation.

Because of the absence of visual perception, visually impaired individuals encounter various difficulties in their daily lives. This paper proposes a visual aid system designed specifically for visually impaired individuals, aiming to assist and guide them in grasping target objects within a tabletop environment. The system employs a visual perception module that incorporates a semantic visual SLAM algorithm, achieved through the fusion of ORB-SLAM2 and YOLO V5s, enabling the construction of a semantic map of the environment. In the human-machine cooperation module, a depth camera is integrated into a wearable device worn on the hand, while a vibration array feedback device conveys directional information of the target to visually impaired individuals for tactile interaction. To enhance the system's versatility, a Dobot Magician manipulator is also employed to aid visually impaired individuals in grasping tasks. The performance of the semantic visual SLAM algorithm in terms of localization and semantic mapping was thoroughly tested. Additionally, several experiments were conducted to simulate visually impaired individuals' interactions in grasping target objects, effectively verifying the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed system. Overall, this system demonstrates its capability to assist and guide visually impaired individuals in perceiving and acquiring target objects.

Potential Factors of Dental Health Behavior as a Predictor of Dental Caries Status in Visually Impaired Children: A Pilot Study.

AIM: This study aimed to explain the potential factors of dental and oral hygiene behavior as a predictor of dental caries status in children with visual impairments. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The prevalence of dental caries in visually impaired children was investigated through a cross-senal study conducted at a visually impaired special needs elementary school in Jakarta, Indonesia. The study included 25 visually impaired children aged 6-12 years, with dental caries status examined using the decayed, missing, and filled teeth (DMFT)/dmft index according to World Health Organization (WHO) criteria. Data were collected through comprehensive interviews involving the completion of 13 WHO Annex questions. RESULTS: The result showed that the overall prevalence of dental caries in visually impaired children was 64%, with an average dmft/DMFT of 2.24/0.96. Some of the factors that significantly influence the dental caries status in children with visual impairments aged 6-12 years include visiting the dentist [p = 0.029, 0.05, Pearson's Chi-square, confidence interval (CI) 95%] and the need for care (p = 0.002, 0.05, Pearson's Chi-square, CI 95%). CONCLUSION: In conclusion, the majority of visually impaired children have dental caries, which is influenced by factors, such as visiting the dentist and the need for treatment. CLINICAL SIGNIFICANCE: Visiting the dentist regularly and knowing the need for the treatment are the important factors in preventing of dental caries. How to cite this article: Darwita RR, Mayasari Y, Danaswari PVS, et al. Potential Factors of Dental Health Behavior as a Predictor of Dental Caries Status in Visually Impaired Children: A Pilot Study. J Contemp Dent Pract 2024;25(2):174-179.

Sound source localization in blind soccer: differences between sighted and visually impaired players.

[Purpose] The sense of vision is omitted in blind soccer, and sound source localization to grasp the position of the ball is extremely important. The purpose of this study was to clarify whether there is a difference in ability in sound source localization in its approaching condition between visually impaired and sighted people, using the source actually used in blind soccer ball competitions. [Participants and Methods] Eighteen participants were divided into two groups; 10 sighted people and eight visually impaired people. The participants were asked to press a switch when a rolling blind soccer ball was sensed in any one of the four directions. We recorded time error as the difference between the time when the ball passed the optical sensor set under the participant's feet and when the participant pressed the switch. [Results] The time error in response increased with the ball speed in all cases; however, its dependence on the ball speed was significantly different between the two groups. [Conclusion] The visually impaired participants made less time errors in response to the localization of the ball than the sighted participants, even when the ball speed increased. The results indicate that visually impaired people have better sound source localization ability than sighted people do.

Are wearable electronic vision enhancement systems (wEVES) beneficial for people with age-related macular degeneration? A scoping review.

INTRODUCTION: Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the most common cause of irreversible visual impairment in the United Kingdom. It has a wide-ranging detrimental impact on daily living, including impairment of functional ability and quality of life. Assistive technology designed to overcome this impairment includes wearable electronic vision enhancement systems (wEVES). This scoping review assesses the usefulness of these systems for people with AMD. METHODS: Four databases (Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, PubMed, Web of Science and Cochrane CENTRAL) were searched to identify papers that investigated image enhancement with a head-mounted electronic device on a sample population that included people with AMD. RESULTS: Thirty-two papers were included: 18 studied the clinical and functional benefits of wEVES, 11 investigated use and usability and 3 discussed sickness and adverse effects. CONCLUSIONS: Wearable electronic vision enhancement systems provide hands-free magnification and image enhancement producing significant improvements in acuity, contrast sensitivity and aspects of laboratory-simulated daily activity. Adverse effects were infrequent, minor and spontaneously resolved with the removal of the device. However, when symptoms arose, they sometimes persisted with continued device usage. There are multi-factorial influences and a diversity of user opinions on promotors to successful device use. These factors are not exclusively driven by visual improvement and incorporate other issues including device weight, ease of use and inconspicuous design. There is insufficient evidence of any cost-benefit analysis for wEVES. However, it has been shown that a user's decision to make a purchase evolves over time, with their estimates of cost falling below the retail price of the devices. Additional research is needed to understand the specific and distinct benefits of wEVES for people with AMD. Further patient-centred research should assess the benefits of wEVES in user-led activities when directly compared with alternative coping strategies, allowing professionals and users to make better prescribing and purchasing decisions.

Remote Perimetry in a Virtual Reality Metaverse Environment for Out-of-Hospital Functional Eye Screening Compared Against the Gold Standard Humphrey Visual Fields Perimeter: Proof-of-Concept Pilot Study.

BACKGROUND: The growing global burden of visual impairment necessitates better population eye screening for early detection of eye diseases. However, accessibility to testing is often limited and centralized at in-hospital settings. Furthermore, many eye screening programs were disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, presenting an urgent need for out-of-hospital solutions. OBJECTIVE: This study investigates the performance of a novel remote perimetry application designed in a virtual reality metaverse environment to enable functional testing in community-based and primary care settings. METHODS: This was a prospective observational study investigating the performance of a novel remote perimetry solution in comparison with the gold standard Humphrey visual field (HVF) perimeter. Subjects received a comprehensive ophthalmologic assessment, HVF perimetry, and remote perimetry testing. The primary outcome measure was the agreement in the classification of overall perimetry result normality by the HVF (Swedish interactive threshold algorithm-fast) and testing with the novel algorithm. Secondary outcome measures included concordance of individual testing points and perimetry topographic maps. RESULTS: We recruited 10 subjects with an average age of 59.6 (range 28-81) years. Of these, 7 (70%) were male and 3 (30%) were female. The agreement in the classification of overall perimetry results was high (9/10, 90%). The pointwise concordance in the automated classification of individual test points was 83.3% (8.2%; range 75%-100%). In addition, there was good perimetry topographic concordance with the HVF in all subjects. CONCLUSIONS: Remote perimetry in a metaverse environment had good concordance with gold standard perimetry using the HVF and could potentially avail functional eye screening in out-of-hospital settings.

Kinesthetic Feedback for Understanding Program Execution.

To better prepare future generations, knowledge about computers and programming are one of the many skills that are part of almost all Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematic programs; however, teaching and learning programming is a complex task that is generally considered difficult by students and teachers alike. One approach to engage and inspire students from a variety of backgrounds is the use of educational robots. Unfortunately, previous research presents mixed results on the effectiveness of educational robots on student learning. One possibility for this lack of clarity may be because students have a wide variety of styles of learning. It is possible that the use of kinesthetic feedback, in addition to the normally used visual feedback, may improve learning with educational robots by providing a richer, multi-modal experience that may appeal to a larger number of students with different learning styles. It is also possible, however, that the addition of kinesthetic feedback, and how it may interfere with the visual feedback, may decrease a student's ability to interpret the program commands being executed by a robot, which is critical for program debugging. In this work, we investigated whether human participants were able to accurately determine a sequence of program commands performed by a robot when both kinesthetic and visual feedback were being used together. Command recall and end point location determination were compared to the typically used visual-only method, as well as a narrative description. Results from 10 sighted participants indicated that individuals were able to accurately determine a sequence of movement commands and their magnitude when using combined kinesthetic + visual feedback. Participants' recall accuracy of program commands was actually better with kinesthetic + visual feedback than just visual feedback. Although the recall accuracy was even better with the narrative description, this was primarily due to participants confusing an absolute rotation command with a relative rotation command with the kinesthetic + visual feedback. Participants' zone location accuracy of the end point after a command was executed was significantly better for both the kinesthetic + visual feedback and narrative methods compared to the visual-only method. Together, these results suggest that the use of both kinesthetic + visual feedback improves an individual's ability to interpret program commands, rather than decreases it.

Visible Light Communications-Based Assistance System for the Blind and Visually Impaired: Design, Implementation, and Intensive Experimental Evaluation in a Real-Life Situation.

Severe visual impairment and blindness significantly affect a person's quality of life, leading sometimes to social anxiety. Nevertheless, instead of concentrating on a person's inability, we could focus on their capacities and on their other senses, which in many cases are more developed. On the other hand, the technical evolution that we are witnessing is able to provide practical means that can reduce the effects that blindness and severe visual impairment have on a person's life. In this context, this article proposes a novel wearable solution that has the potential to significantly improve blind person's quality of life by providing personal assistance with the help of Visible Light Communications (VLC) technology. To prevent the wearable device from drawing attention and to not further emphasize the user's deficiency, the prototype has been integrated into a smart backpack that has multiple functions, from localization to obstacle detection. To demonstrate the viability of the concept, the prototype has been evaluated in a complex scenario where it is used to receive the location of a certain object and to safely travel towards it. The experimental results have: i. confirmed the prototype's ability to receive data at a Bit-Error Rate (BER) lower than 10-7; ii. established the prototype's ability to provide support for a 3 m radius around a standard 65 × 65 cm luminaire; iii. demonstrated the concept's compatibility with light dimming in the 1-99% interval while maintaining the low BER; and, most importantly, iv. proved that the use of the concept can enable a person to obtain information and guidance, enabling safer and faster way of traveling to a certain unknown location. As far as we know, this work is the first one to report the implementation and the experimental evaluation of such a concept.

Pedestrian Crossing Sensing Based on Hough Space Analysis to Support Visually Impaired Pedestrians.

There are many visually impaired people globally, and it is important to support their ability to walk independently. Acoustic signals and escort zones have been installed on pedestrian crossings for the visually impaired people to walk safely; however, pedestrian accidents, including those involving the visually impaired, continue to occur. Therefore, to realize safe walking for the visually impaired on pedestrian crossings, we present an automatic sensing method for pedestrian crossings using images from cameras attached to them. Because the white rectangular stripes that mark pedestrian crossings are aligned, we focused on the edges of these rectangular stripes and proposed a novel pedestrian crossing sensing method based on the dispersion of the slope of a straight line in Hough space. Our proposed method possesses unique characteristics that allow it to effectively handle challenging scenarios that traditional methods struggle with. It excels at detecting crosswalks even in low-light conditions during nighttime when illumination levels may vary. Moreover, it can detect crosswalks even when certain areas are partially obscured by objects or obstructions. By minimizing computational costs, our method achieves high real-time performance, ensuring efficient and timely crosswalk detection in real-world environments. Specifically, our proposed method demonstrates an impressive accuracy rate of 98.47%. Additionally, the algorithm can be executed at almost real-time speeds (approximately 10.5 fps) using a Jetson Nano small-type computer, showcasing its suitability as a wearable device.

Masked Face Emotion Recognition Based on Facial Landmarks and Deep Learning Approaches for Visually Impaired People.

Current artificial intelligence systems for determining a person's emotions rely heavily on lip and mouth movement and other facial features such as eyebrows, eyes, and the forehead. Furthermore, low-light images are typically classified incorrectly because of the dark region around the eyes and eyebrows. In this work, we propose a facial emotion recognition method for masked facial images using low-light image enhancement and feature analysis of the upper features of the face with a convolutional neural network. The proposed approach employs the AffectNet image dataset, which includes eight types of facial expressions and 420,299 images. Initially, the facial input image's lower parts are covered behind a synthetic mask. Boundary and regional representation methods are used to indicate the head and upper features of the face. Secondly, we effectively adopt a facial landmark detection method-based feature extraction strategy using the partially covered masked face's features. Finally, the features, the coordinates of the landmarks that have been identified, and the histograms of the oriented gradients are then incorporated into the classification procedure using a convolutional neural network. An experimental evaluation shows that the proposed method surpasses others by achieving an accuracy of 69.3% on the AffectNet dataset.

Sound-Based Localization Using LSTM Networks for Visually Impaired Navigation.

In this work, we developed a prototype that adopted sound-based systems for localization of visually impaired individuals. The system was implemented based on a wireless ultrasound network, which helped the blind and visually impaired to navigate and maneuver autonomously. Ultrasonic-based systems use high-frequency sound waves to detect obstacles in the environment and provide location information to the user. Voice recognition and long short-term memory (LSTM) techniques were used to design the algorithms. The Dijkstra algorithm was also used to determine the shortest distance between two places. Assistive hardware tools, which included an ultrasonic sensor network, a global positioning system (GPS), and a digital compass, were utilized to implement this method. For indoor evaluation, three nodes were localized on the doors of different rooms inside the house, including the kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom. The coordinates (interactive latitude and longitude points) of four outdoor areas (mosque, laundry, supermarket, and home) were identified and stored in a microcomputer's memory to evaluate the outdoor settings. The results showed that the root mean square error for indoor settings after 45 trials is about 0.192. In addition, the Dijkstra algorithm determined that the shortest distance between two places was within an accuracy of 97%.

Obstacle Detection System for Navigation Assistance of Visually Impaired People Based on Deep Learning Techniques.

Visually impaired people seek social integration, yet their mobility is restricted. They need a personal navigation system that can provide privacy and increase their confidence for better life quality. In this paper, based on deep learning and neural architecture search (NAS), we propose an intelligent navigation assistance system for visually impaired people. The deep learning model has achieved significant success through well-designed architecture. Subsequently, NAS has proved to be a promising technique for automatically searching for the optimal architecture and reducing human efforts for architecture design. However, this new technique requires extensive computation, limiting its wide use. Due to its high computation requirement, NAS has been less investigated for computer vision tasks, especially object detection. Therefore, we propose a fast NAS to search for an object detection framework by considering efficiency. The NAS will be used to explore the feature pyramid network and the prediction stage for an anchor-free object detection model. The proposed NAS is based on a tailored reinforcement learning technique. The searched model was evaluated on a combination of the Coco dataset and the Indoor Object Detection and Recognition (IODR) dataset. The resulting model outperformed the original model by 2.6% in average precision (AP) with acceptable computation complexity. The achieved results proved the efficiency of the proposed NAS for custom object detection.

HELF (Haptic Encoded Language Framework): a digital script for deaf-blind and visually impaired.

Purpose: Digital media has brought a revolution, making the world a global village. For people who are visually impaired and people with visual and hearing impairment, navigating through the digital world can be as precarious as moving through the real world. To enable them to connect with the digital world, we propose a solution, Haptic Encoded Language Framework (HELF), that uses haptic technology to enable them to write digital text using swiping gestures and understand the text through vibrations. Method: We developed an Android application to present the concept of HELF and evaluate its performance. We tested the application on 13 users (five visually impaired and eight sighted individuals). Results: The preliminary exploratory analysis of the proposed framework using the Android application developed reveals encouraging results. Overall, the reading accuracy has been found to be approximately 91%, and the average CPM is found to be 25.7. Conclusion: The volunteering users of the HELF Android application found it useful as a means of using the digital media and recommended its usage as an assistive technology for the visually challenged. The results of their performance of using the application motivate further research and development in the proposed work to make HELF more usable by people who are visually impaired and people with visual and hearing impairment.

Severe maternal morbidity and other perinatal complications among women with physical, sensory, or intellectual and developmental disabilities.

BACKGROUND: Little is known about severe maternal morbidity (SMM) among women with disabilities. OBJECTIVE: We assessed differences in SMM and other perinatal complications by presence and type of disability. We hypothesised that SMM and other complications would be more common in births to women with disabilities than to women without disabilities. METHODS: We conducted a retrospective cohort study of California births from 2000 to 2012, using birth and death certificate data linked with hospital discharge data. We included singleton deliveries with gestational age of 23-42 weeks. We classified women as having any disability or not and identified disability type (physical, hearing, vision, intellectual/developmental disabilities [IDD]). Our primary outcome was a composite indicator of SMM. Secondary outcomes included additional perinatal complications: gestational hypertension, preeclampsia, gestational diabetes, venous thromboembolism, chorioamnionitis, puerperal endometritis and mental health disorders complicating pregnancy, childbirth or the puerperium. We used modified Poisson regression to obtain covariate-adjusted relative risks (RR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for the association of disability status and type with SMM and secondary outcomes. RESULTS: Of 5,787,090 deliveries, 33,044 (0.6%) were to women with disabilities. Of these, 311 per 10,000 were complicated by SMM, compared with 84 per 10,000 deliveries to women without disabilities. In multivariable analyses, risk of SMM for births to women with disabilities was nearly three times that for women without disabilities (RR 2.84, 95% CI 2.67, 3.02). Proportion and risk of SMM were greatest for vision disability (793 per 10,000; RR 4.04, 95% CI 3.41, 4.78). Secondary outcomes were also more common among women with disabilities. In particular, more than a third of births to women with IDD (37.4%) were complicated by mental health disorders (versus 2.2% for women without disabilities). CONCLUSION: As hypothesised, SMM and other perinatal complications were more common among women with disabilities than among women without disabilities.

Effect of the age of visual impairment onset on employment outcomes in South Korea: analysis of the national survey on persons with disabilities data.

BACKGROUND: Opportunities for paid employment provide meaningful ways for those with disabilities to participate in society and achieve financial independence. Although the onset age of disabilities can alter individuals' attitudes toward accepting their disabilities and their desire for work, the lack of data limits relevant empirical research. The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of the onset age on employment, job security (permanent vs. temporary), and wage level among visually impaired adults in South Korea. METHODS: We used three years of the National Survey on Persons with Disabilities data, 2011, 2014, and 2017, and included 583 participants in this study. We used a logistic regression model for the employment status and a multinomial logistic regression model for job security. We analyzed log monthly wage by a multivariate linear regression model, which subdivided the age groups, with 20-49 years old denoting prime-aged (n = 245) and 50-64 years old denoting late-middle-aged (n = 338). For each age group, we conducted a sub-analysis by sex. RESULTS: For prime-aged adults, the employment probability decreased as the age of visual impartment onset increased, and women in particular experienced a lower employment rate for both permanent and temporary jobs when their disability onset age was above 25. However, among permanent employees, monthly wages were higher if the onset age was 25 + compared to when the onset age was 0-5 years old. In late middle-aged adults, adult onset disabilities were associated with higher odds of employment and higher wages for temporary jobs, implying these individuals worked unskilled or manual jobs. CONCLUSIONS: In prime-aged adults, higher monthly wages among permanent employees showed that they were more likely to continue their original work, whereas in late-middle-aged adults, adult-onset disabilities were associated with a higher employment rate and higher wages for temporary jobs, suggesting the need for further investigation into job quality. These findings indicate a need for differentiated policy approaches considering the onset age of visual impairment to improve labor market outcomes throughout individuals' lifespans.

Emotional Effects in Object Recognition by the Visually Impaired People in Grocery Shopping.

To date, neuroscientific literature on consumption patterns of specific categories of consumers, such as people with disability, is still scarce. This study explored the implicit emotional consumer experience of visually impaired (VI) consumers in-store. A group of VI and a control group explored three different product shelves and manipulated target products during a real supermarket shopping experience. Autonomic (SCL, skin conductance level; SCR, skin conductance response; HR, heart rate; PVA, pulse volume amplitude; BVP, blood volume pulse), behavioural and self-report data were collected in relation to three phases of the in-store shopping experience: (i) identification of a product (recognition accuracy, ACC, and reaction times, RTs); (ii) style of product purchase (predominant sense used for shelf exploration, store spatial representation, and ability to orientate themselves); (iii) consumers experience itself, underlying their emotional experience. In the VI group, higher levels of disorientation, difficulty in finding products, and repeating the route independently were discovered. ACC and RTs also varied by product type. VI also showed significantly higher PVA values compared to the control. For some specific categories (pasta category), PVA correlates negatively with time to recognition and positively with simplicity in finding products in the entire sample. In conclusion, VI emotional and cognitive experience of grocery shopping as stressful and frustrating and has a greater cognitive investment, which is mirrored by the activation of a larger autonomic response compared to the control group. Nevertheless, VI ability to search and recognise a specific product is not so different from people without visual impairment.

Three-Dimensional Encoding Approach for Wearable Tactile Communication Devices.

In this work, we presented a novel encoding method for tactile communication. This approach was based on several tactile sensory characteristics of human skin at different body parts, such as the head and neck, where location coordinates in the three-dimensional (3D) space were clearly mapped in the brain cortex, and gentle stimulations of vibrational touching with varied strengths were received instantly and precisely. For certain applications, such as playing cards or navigating walk paths for blinded people, we demonstrated specifically designed code lists with different patterns of tactile points in varied temporal sequences. By optimizing these codes, we achieved excellent efficiency and accuracy in our test experiments. As this method matched well with the natural habits of tactile sensory, it was easy to learn in a short training period. The results of the present work have offered a silent, efficient and accurate communication solution for visually impaired people or other users.

Review of Navigation Assistive Tools and Technologies for the Visually Impaired.

The visually impaired suffer greatly while moving from one place to another. They face challenges in going outdoors and in protecting themselves from moving and stationary objects, and they also lack confidence due to restricted mobility. Due to the recent rapid rise in the number of visually impaired persons, the development of assistive devices has emerged as a significant research field. This review study introduces several techniques to help the visually impaired with their mobility and presents the state-of-the-art of recent assistive technologies that facilitate their everyday life. It also analyses comprehensive multiple mobility assistive technologies for indoor and outdoor environments and describes the different location and feedback methods for the visually impaired using assistive tools based on recent technologies. The navigation tools used for the visually impaired are discussed in detail in subsequent sections. Finally, a detailed analysis of various methods is also carried out, with future recommendations.

Outdoor Localization Using BLE RSSI and Accessible Pedestrian Signals for the Visually Impaired at Intersections.

One of the major challenges for blind and visually impaired (BVI) people is traveling safely to cross intersections on foot. Many countries are now generating audible signals at crossings for visually impaired people to help with this problem. However, these accessible pedestrian signals can result in confusion for visually impaired people as they do not know which signal must be interpreted for traveling multiple crosses in complex road architecture. To solve this problem, we propose an assistive system called CAS (Crossing Assistance System) which extends the principle of the BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) RSSI (Received Signal Strength Indicator) signal for outdoor and indoor location tracking and overcomes the intrinsic limitation of outdoor noise to enable us to locate the user effectively. We installed the system on a real-world intersection and collected a set of data for demonstrating the feasibility of outdoor RSSI tracking in a series of two studies. In the first study, our goal was to show the feasibility of using outdoor RSSI on the localization of four zones. We used a k-nearest neighbors (kNN) method and showed it led to 99.8% accuracy. In the second study, we extended our work to a more complex setup with nine zones, evaluated both the kNN and an additional method, a Support Vector Machine (SVM) with various RSSI features for classification. We found that the SVM performed best using the RSSI average, standard deviation, median, interquartile range (IQR) of the RSSI over a 5 s window. The best method can localize people with 97.7% accuracy. We conclude this paper by discussing how our system can impact navigation for BVI users in outdoor and indoor setups and what are the implications of these findings on the design of both wearable and traffic assistive technology for blind pedestrian navigation.