Topographical orientation is the ability to orient oneself within the environment and to
navigate through it to specific destinations. Topographical disorientation (TD) refers to deficits in orientation and navigation in the real environment, and is a common sequela of brain injuries. People with TD often have difficulties interacting with and perceiving the surrounding environment. The literature suggests that patients with TD are likely to benefit from research leading to clinical standards of practice and technology to facilitate
topographical orientation.
In the light of the above, the objectives of this thesis were to investigate methods of realizing a context-aware, wearable mediated environment system for indoor navigation, and to develop a standard method of quantifying the impact of such a system on indoor navigation task performance.
In realizing these objectives, we first conducted an extensive literature review of in-door localization systems. This review served to identify potential technologies for an indoor, in-situ wayfinding assistive device. Subsequently, an automated navigation algorithm was designed. Our algorithm reduced the navigational effort of simulated patients with topographical disorientation while accounting for the physical abilities of the patient, environmental barriers and dynamic building changes. We introduced and demonstrated
a novel energy-based wayfinding metric, which is independent of route complexity. An
experiment was conducted to identify preferred graphical navigation tools for mediated reality wayfinding guidance. Different combinations of spatial knowledge, graphical presentations and reference frames were considered in the experiment. The data suggested that the locator and minimap are the preferred navigational tools. Two unique optical-inertial localization systems for real-time indoor human tracking were created. The first localization system was oriented to pedestrians, while the second was implemented on a wheelchair. Empirical tests produced localization accuracies comparable to those reported in literature. Finally, a fully operational mediated reality location aware system for indoor navigation was realized. Tests with human participants indicated a significant
reduction in physical effort in comparison to the no-tool condition, during wayfinding
tasks in an unfamiliar indoor environment. Collectively, the findings and developments
of this thesis lay the foundation for future research on wearable, location-based navigational assistance for individuals with wayfinding difficulties.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:OTU.1807/24328 |
| Date | 13 April 2010 |
| Creators | Torres Solis, Jorge |
| Contributors | Chau, Tom, Mann, Steve |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | en_ca |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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