GuideNav: User-Informed Development of a Vision-Only Robotic Navigation Assistant For Blind Travelers

• URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/2512.06147v1
• Date: Fri, 05 Dec 2025 20:57:48 GMT
• Title: GuideNav: User-Informed Development of a Vision-Only Robotic Navigation Assistant For Blind Travelers
• Abstract summary: GuideNav is a vision-only, teach-and-repeat navigation system.<n>Inspired by how guide dogs are trained and assist their handlers, GuideNav autonomously repeats a path demonstrated by a sighted person using a robot.<n>In field tests, GuideNav consistently achieved kilometer-scale route following across five outdoor environments.
• Score: 14.840633179067295
• License: http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/
• Abstract: While commendable progress has been made in user-centric research on mobile assistive systems for blind and low-vision (BLV) individuals, references that directly inform robot navigation design remain rare. To bridge this gap, we conducted a comprehensive human study involving interviews with 26 guide dog handlers, four white cane users, nine guide dog trainers, and one O\&M trainer, along with 15+ hours of observing guide dog-assisted walking. After de-identification, we open-sourced the dataset to promote human-centered development and informed decision-making for assistive systems for BLV people. Building on insights from this formative study, we developed GuideNav, a vision-only, teach-and-repeat navigation system. Inspired by how guide dogs are trained and assist their handlers, GuideNav autonomously repeats a path demonstrated by a sighted person using a robot. Specifically, the system constructs a topological representation of the taught route, integrates visual place recognition with temporal filtering, and employs a relative pose estimator to compute navigation actions - all without relying on costly, heavy, power-hungry sensors such as LiDAR. In field tests, GuideNav consistently achieved kilometer-scale route following across five outdoor environments, maintaining reliability despite noticeable scene variations between teach and repeat runs. A user study with 3 guide dog handlers and 1 guide dog trainer further confirmed the system's feasibility, marking (to our knowledge) the first demonstration of a quadruped mobile system retrieving a path in a manner comparable to guide dogs.

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