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AccessVOR: A Semantically Enriched Voronoï-Based Approach for Navigation Assistance of Wheelchair Users in Indoor Environments

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 June 2019

Reda Yaagoubi*
Affiliation:
(College of Geomatics and Surveying Engineering, IAV Hassan II, Rabat Morocco)
Yehia Miky
Affiliation:
(Department of Geomatics, Faculty of Environmental Design, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia) (Faculty of Engineering, Aswan University, Aswan, Egypt)
Ahmed El Shouny
Affiliation:
(Department of Geomatics, Faculty of Environmental Design, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia) (Survey Research Institute, National Water Research Center, Giza, Egypt)
*

Abstract

People with physical disabilities often face many challenges due to the non-compliance of public buildings to accessibility standards. Hence, it is necessary to provide them with relevant information about the quality of access associated with the environment they plan to visit. In this paper, we propose ‘AccessVOR’ (Accessibility assessment based on VORonoï Diagram), a novel approach that aims to automatically generate an indoor navigation network and to assess its accessibility for people moving with wheelchairs based on the American with Disabilities Act Accessibility Guidelines (ADAAG). A semantically enriched spatial database is developed based on ADAAG and the Indoor Geography Markup Language (IndoorGML) standard. A Three-Dimensional (3D) navigation-graph is then generated from the various components of an indoor environment using a Voronoï Diagram. The semantics of ADAAG allow assessing the accessibility of each segment of this navigation graph. Next, a navigation cost is allocated to this graph based on the accessibility of each segment of the network graph for navigation purposes.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Navigation 2019 

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