A novel path planning algorithm for visually impaired people

Abstract

Visually impaired people require constant assistance for navigating from one location to another. Achieving autonomous shopping experience in a supermarket is a real challenge for them. This paper presents a greedy path planning algorithm for routing a visually impaired person through an obstacle free optimal path through the corridors of the supermarket. The novelty of the proposed path planning algorithm is the minimization of the number of turns along with distance, as visually impaired people prefers to move through straight paths without any turns. The proposed algorithm can be incorporated into any existing shopping assistance systems available in the market with obstacle detection facility in it. The algorithm also reroutes the user in case of an obstacle detected in the path. Keywords: Visually impaired people, Greedy algorithm, Shortest path, Obstacle free path