Project Details

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Map Building and Navigation in Augmented Reality (AR) Application

Company: PSU RERC on AAC

Major(s):
Primary: CMPSC
Secondary: CMPEN
Optional: ME

Non-Disclosure Agreement: NO

Intellectual Property: NO

This project will contribute to the development of augmented reality (AR) software that will assist individuals with disabilities in navigating and communicating in complex environments. For example, an individual with a disability may want to buy 3 different items at a Walmart. The individual may require support in navigating to the different sections of the store to obtain desired items. A desirable support would be an AR software tool that could identify their current location, and provide "directional arrows" (presented in AR on a tablet device) to assist them in walking to the target locations. Longterm, the AR software will also include communication supports - the Spring 2024 team will focus on navigation supports. The Spring 2024 team will start from the work of our two Fall 2023 Learning Factory teams. The Fall 2023 teams developed (a) an Augmented Reality application and (b) a Navigation plugin. The Fall 2023 AR application and Navigation plugin were written using Unity tools and C#. The Spring 2024 team will incorporate use of the Navigation plug-in into the main AR application. The Navigation plug-in currently uses maps created by a Vuforia engine, but that will not work as a long term option. The Spring 2024 team will focus on the computer vision problem of scanning the environment to create a map of walkable paths that can be used by the Navigation plug-in. The "scanning the environment" approach is the preferred method for supporting indoor navigation, but the team may also look into methods of outdoor navigation using GPS.