Assisted Navigation in Dynamic and Complex Environments

USU CSATL

Computer Science Assistive Technology Laboratory

Department of Computer Science

Utah State University

• Acknowledgments and Disclaimers: These materials are based upon work supported, in part, by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. IIS-0346880. Any opinions, findings, conclusions and/or recommendations expressed on these web pages are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF).

  This reseach is also suppored, in part, by the National Eye Institute of the National Institutes of Health under Grant No. 1 R41 EY017516-01A1. Any opinions, findings, conclustions and/or recommendations expressed on these web pages are those of the authors and do not necessarilty reflect the views of the National Eye Institute.

  This research is also supported, in part, by three Community University Research Initiative (CURI) grants from the State of Utah. Any opinions, findings, conclusions and/or recommendations expressed on these web pages are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the State of Utah and/or Utah State University.

• What are SANDEE systems? The SANDEE acronym stands for a System for Assisted Navigation in Dynamic and complEx Envrironments. The objective of a SANDEE is to enable the visually impaired to navigate dynamic and complex indoor and outdoor environments with comfort and ease. We are developing SANDEEs to address the limitations of the existing assisted navigation technologies, such as dependency on one sensor type, inability to do sensor fusion, insufficient context sensitivity, limited communication capabilities, and the failure to reduce the user's navigation-related cognitive load. We emphasize the feasibility of robot-assisted navigation. In fact, robot-assisted navigation is one of the assisted navigation modes that we are actively investigating.
• R&D Team: Faculty, grad students, and staff who work at, have worked at and/or collaborated with the USU CSATL (See Satl) on various projects:
  • Vladimir Kulyukin, Director, Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science, USU
  • Daniel Coster, Associate Professor, Department of Mathematics and Statistics, USU
  • Minghui Jiang, Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science, USU
  • Grayson Osborne, Professor Emeritus, Department of Psychology, USU
  • Sarah Rule, Director, USU Center for Persons with Disabilities.
  • Martin Blair, Director, Utah Assistive Technology Program, USU Center for Persons with Disabilities
  • Chaitanya Gharpure, CS Department, USU. Defended his Ph.D. thesis in November 2007. Now at Google.
  • John Nicholson, Ph.D. student, CS Department, USU
  • Aliasgar Kutiyanawala, Ph.D. student, CS Department, USU
  • Amit Banavalikar, Masters student, CS Department, USU. Defended his M.S. in CS thesis in 2005.
  • Kaushik Srinadth, Masters student, CS Department, USU. Defended his M.S. in CS thesis in 2006.
  • Bharath Ramaswamy, Masters student, EE Department, USU. Defended his M.S. in EE thesis in 2006.
  • Pradnya Sute, Masters student, CS Department, USU. Defended her M.S. thesis in CS in 2005.
  • Nathaniel De Graw, Masters student, CS Department, USU. Worked in the lab in 2003-04.
  • Sachin Pavithran, Assistive Technology Specialist, USU Center for Persons with Disabilities

• Kulyukin, V., Nicholson, J., and Coster, D. (2008). ShopTalk: Toward Independent Shopping by People with Visual Impairments. To appear in Proceedings of the 8th ACM Conference on Computers and Accessiblity (ASSETS 2008), Halifax, Canada.
• Kulyukin, V., Gharpure, C., and Coster, D. (2008). Robot-Assisted Shopping for the Visually Impaired: Proof-of-Concept Design and Feasibility Evaluation. Assistive Technology, Volume 20.2/Summer 2008, pp. 86-98. RESNA Press.
• Kulyukin, V., Nicholson, J., and Coster, D. (2008). ShopTalk: Toward Independent Shopping by People with Visual Impairments. Technical Report USU-CSATL-1-04-08, Computer Science Assistive Technology Laboratory, Department of Computer Science, Utah State University. April 15, 2008.
• Kutiyanawala, A. and Kulyukin, V. (2008). A Cartesian Robot for RFID Signal Distribution Model Verification. Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Ubiquitous Intelligence and Computing (UIC 2008), Oslo, Norway, July 2007.
• Kulyukin, V. Kutiyanawala, A., LoPresti, E., Matthews, J., and Simpson, R. (2008). Iwalker: Toward a Rollator-Mounted Wayfinding System for the Elderly. To appear in the Proceedings of the 2008 IEEE International Conference on RFID. April 16-17, Las Vegas, NV, 2008.
• Kutiyanawala, A. and Kulyukin, V. (2008). A Cartesian Robot for RFID Signal Distribution Model Verification. Technical Report USU-CSATL-1-01-08, Computer Science Assistive Technology Laboratory, Department of Computer Science, Utah State University. January 23, 2008.
• Gharpure, C. and Kulyukin, V. (2008). Robot-Assisted Shopping for the Blind: Issues in Spatial Cognition and Product Selection. International Journal of Service Robotics, March 2008, DOI 10.1007/s11370-008-0020-9.
• Kulyukin, V., Nicholson, J., Ross, D. Marston, J., Gaunet, F. (2008). The Blind Leading The Blind: Toward Collaborative Online Route Information Management by Individuals with Visual Impairments. To appear in the Proceedings of the AAAI Social Information Processing Symposium. Palo Alto, CA, March, 2008.
• Minghui, J. and Kulyukin, V. (2007). Connect-the-Dots in a Graph and Buffon's Needle on a Chessboard: Two Problems in Assisted Navigation. Proceedings of the 10th Joint Conference on Information Sciences and the 10th International Conference on Computer Science and Informatics (JCIS/CSI-07). Salt Lake City, UT, July 18-24, 2007, pp. 713-719.
• Kulyukin, V. LoPresti, E., Kutiyanawala, A., Simpson, R., and Matthews, J. (2007). A Rollator-Mounted Wayfinding System for the Elderly: Proof-of-Concept Design and Preliminary Technical Evaluation. Proceedings of the 30-th Annual Conference of the Rehabilitation Engineering and Assistive Technology Society of North America (RESNA 2007), June 2007, Phoenix, Arizona.
• Nicholson, J. and Kulyukin, V. (2007). ShopTalk: Independent Blind Shopping = Verbal Route Directions + Barcode Scans. Proceedings of the 2007 Rehabilitation Engineering and Assistive Technology Society of North America (RESNA) Conference, Phoenix, Arizona.
• Kulyukin, V., Kutiyanawala, A., and Jiang, M. (2007). Surface-Embedded Passive RF Exteroception: Kepler, Greed, and Buffon's Needle. Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Ubiquitous Intelligence and Computing (UIC 2007), Hong Kong, China, July 2007 (In Press).
• Kulyukin, V. (2007). Command, Goal Disambiguation, Introspection, and Instruction in Gesture-Free Spoken Dialogue with a Robotic Office Assistant. In Aleksandar Lazinica (Ed.), Mobile Robots: Towards New Applications, pp. 171-192, Pro Literatur Verlag, Germany, 2007. ISBN 3-86611-314-5.
• Kulyukin, V. (2007). Robot-Assisted Shopping for the Blind: Haptic and Locomotor Spaces in Supermarkets (Extended Paper Abstract). To be presented at the AAAI Spring Symposium on Multidisciplinary Collaboration for Socially Assistive Robotics Stanford University, Palo Alto, California, March 26-28, 2007.
• Kulyukin, V. (2007). Talk the Walk: Robotic NLP vs. Human Sublanguage Acquisition (Extended Poster Abstract). To be presented at the AAAI Spring Symposium on Multidisciplinary Collaboration for Socially Assistive Robotics Stanford University, Palo Alto, California, March 26-28, 2007.
• Kulyukin, V., Gharpure, C., Pentico, C. (2007). Robots as Interfaces to Haptic and Locomotor Spaces. Proceedings of the 2nd ACM Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI 2007), Washington, D.C.
• Kutiyanawala, A., Kulyukin, V., LoPresti, E., Matthews, J., Simpson, R. (2006). A Rollator-Mounted Wayfinding System for the Elderly: A Smart World Perspective. Proceedings of the 8th ACM Conference on Computers and Accessiblity (ASSETS 2006), Portland, Oregon.
• Jiang, M. and Kulyukin, V. (2006). Connecting the Dots in a Graph and Buffon's Needle on a Chessboard: Two Problems in Assisted Navigation. Technical Report USU-CS-THEORY-2006-0309, Department of Computer Science, Utah State University. March 9, 2006.
Kulyukin, V., Gharpure, C., Nicholson, J., Osborne, G. (2006). Robot-Assisted Wayfinding for the Visually Impaired in Structured Indoor Environments. Autonomous Robots, 21(1), pp. 29-41. The pdf version is available here.
• Gharpure, G., Kulyukin, V., Jiang, M., Kutiyanawala, A. (2006). Passive Radio Frequency Exteroception in Robot-Assisted Shopping for the Blind. To appear in the Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Ubiquitous Intelligence and Computing (UIC 2006), Wuhan and Three Gorges, China.
• Kulyukin, V., and Gharpure, G. (2006). A Robotic Shopping Assistant for the Blind. Proceedings of the 2006 Rehabilitation Engineering and Assistive Technology Society of North America (RESNA) Conference, Atlanta, Georgia.
• Nicholson, J. and Kulyukin, V. (2006). On the Impact of Data Collection on the Quality of Signal Strength Signatures in Wi-Fi Indoor Localization. Proceedings of the 2006 Rehabilitation Engineering and Assistive Technology Society of North America (RESNA) Conference, Atlanta, Georgia.
• Gharpure, C., Kulyukin, V., and Nicholson, J. (2006). A Three-Sensor Model for Indoor Navigation. Proceedings of the 2006 Rehabilitation Engineering and Assistive Technology Society of North America (RESNA) Conference, Atlanta, Georgia.
• Nicholson, J. and Kulyukin, V. (2006). A Wearable Two-Sensor O&M Device for Blind College Students. Proceedings of the 2006 Rehabilitation Engineering and Assistive Technology Society of North America (RESNA) Conference, Atlanta, Georgia.
• Gharpure, C., Kulyukin, V., and Kutiyanawala, A. (2006). A Robotic Shopping Assistant for the Blind: A Pilot Study in a Supermarket. Technical Report USU-CSATL-1-01-06, Computer Science Assistive Technology Laboratory, Department of Computer Science, Utah State University. January 24, 2006.
• Kulyukin, V., Kutiyanawala, A, Jiang, M., and Gharpure, C. (2006). Surface-Embedded Passive Radio Frequency Exteroception in Robot Navigation. Technical Report USU-CSATL-2-01-06, Computer Science Assistive Technology Laboratory, Department of Computer Science, Utah State University. January 24, 2006.
• Kulyukin, V. and Gharpure, C. (2006). Ergonomics-for-One in a Robotic Shopping Cart for the Blind. Proceedings of the 2006 ACM Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI 2006), Salt Lake City, Utah.
• Kulyukin, V. (2006). On Natural Language Dialogue with Assistive Robots. Proceedings of the 2006 ACM Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI 2006), Salt Lake City, Utah.
• Kulyukin, V., Gharpure, C., and Nicholson, J. (2005). RoboCart: Toward Robot-Assisted Navigation of Grocery Stores by the Visually Impaired. Proceedings of the 2005 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2005), Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
• Kulyukin, V., Banavalikar, A., and Nicholson, J. (2005). Wireless Indoor Localization with Dempster-Shafer Simple Support Functions. Technical Report USU-CSATL-1-05-05, Computer Science Assistive Technology Laboratory, Department of Computer Science, Utah State University.
• Kulyukin, V. and Gharpure, C. (2005). Topological Landmark Recognition Indoors: Extracting Symbolic Features from Laser Range Signatures. Technical Report USU-CSATL-2-05-05, Computer Science Assistive Technology Laboratory, Department of Computer Science, Utah State University.
• Kulyukin, V. and Nicholson, J. (2005). Wireless Localization Indoors with Wi-Fi Access Points. Proceedings of the 2005 Rehabilitation Engineering and Assistive Technology Society of North America (RESNA) Conference, Atlanta, Georgia.
• Kulyukin, V. and Nicholson, J. (2005). On Overcoming Longitudinal and Latitudinal Drift in GPS-Based Localization Outdoors. Proceedings of the 2005 Rehabilitation Engineering and Assistive Technology Society of North America (RESNA) Conference, Atlanta, Georgia. If you are interested in more details, you can check out our technical report here.
• Banavalikar, A. (2005). Wireless Localization and Tracking Indoors. Masters Report, Department of Computer Science, Utah State University.
• Kulyukin, V., Banavalikar, A., and Nicholson, J. (2005). Wireless Indoor Localization with Dempster-Shafer Simple Support Functions. Technical Report USU-CSATL-1-05-05, Computer Science Assistive Technology Laboratory, Department of Computer Science, Utah State University.
• Kulyukin, V. and Gharpure, C. (2005). Topological Landmark Recognition Indoors: Extracting Symbolic Features from Laser Range Signatures. Technical Report USU-CSATL-2-05-05, Computer Science Assistive Technology Laboratory, Department of Computer Science, Utah State University.
• Kulyukin, V., Gharpure, C., and Nicholson, J. (2005). RoboCart: Toward Robot-Assisted Navigation of Grocery Stores by the Visually Impaired. To appear in Proceedings of the 2005 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2005), Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
• Kulyukin, V. (2005). Should Rehabilitation Robots be Dialogical?. Presented at the 2005 AAAI Spring Symposium on Dialogical Robots, Palo Alto, CA.
• Kulyukin, V., Gharpure, C., Nicholson, J., Pavithran, S. (2004). RFID in Robot-Assisted Indoor Navigation for the Visually Impaired. Proceedings of the 2004 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2004), Sendai, Japan.
• Kulyukin, V., Gharpure, C., Sute, P., De Graw., N., Nicholson, J. (2004). A Robotic Wayfinding System for the Visually Impaired. Proceedings of the Sixteenth Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence Conference (IAAI-04), San Jose, CA.
• Kulyukin, V., Gharpure, C., De Graw, N., Nicholson, J., Pavithran, S. (2004). A Robotic Guide for the Visually Impaired in Indoor Environments. Proceedings of the 2004 Rehabilitation Engineering and Assistive Technology Society of North America (RESNA) Conference, Orlando, Florida.
• Gharpure, C. (2004). Orientation-Free RFID-Based Navigation in a Robotic Guide for the Visually Impaired. Masters Thesis, Department of Computer Science, Utah State University.
• Sute, P. (2004). Perception of Audio Cues in Robot-Assisted Navigation for the Visually Impaired. Masters Report, Department of Computer Science, Utah State University.
• Kulyukin, V., Sute, P., Gharpure, C., and Pavithran, S. (2004). Perception of Audio Cues in Robot-Assisted Navigation. Proceedings of the 2004 Rehabilitation Engineering and Assistive Technology Society of North America (RESNA) Conference, Orlando, Florida.
• Kulyukin, V., Gharpure, C., De Graw, N. (2004). Human-Robot Interaction in a Robotic Guide for the Visually Impaired . Proceedings of the AAAI 2004 Spring Symposium on Interaction between Humans and Autonomous Systems over Extended Operation, Palo Alto, CA, March 2004.
• Kulyukin, V. (2003). Robot-Assisted Navigation for the Visually Impaired. Invited Talk at the Computer Science Department of Brigham Young University, Nov. 2003.
• Kulyukin, V. (2004). Human-Robot Interaction through Gesture-Free Spoken Dialogue . Autonomous Robots, vol. 16(3), 2004.
• Kulyukin, V. and De Graw, N. (2003). Integrating Language and Vision for Voice Communication with Three-Tiered Autonomous Robots. Proceedings of the 2003 International Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IC-AI 2003), Las Vegas, Nevada.
• Kulyukin, V. and Blair, M. (2003). Distributed Tracking and Guidance in Indoor Environments. Proceedings of the 2003 Rehabilitation Engineering and Assistive Technology Society of North America (RESNA) Conference, Atlanta, Georgia.
• Kulyukin, V. and Blair, M. (2003). Intelligent Voice Control of Electronic Devices. Proceedings of the 2003 Rehabilitation Engineering and Assistive Technology Society of North America (RESNA) Conference, Atlanta, Georgia.