Navindoor
The NavIndoor project main objective is to make orientation and navigation within the buildings of the Faculty of Humanities at Sapienza University accessible, with a particular focus on students with sensory or motor disabilities, while still providing benefits to the entire student community. The project originates from the challenges of indoor navigation in environments such as university buildings, where traditional localization systems like GPS are often ineffective. For this reason, one of the primary goals is to develop a reliable system that operates without the need for dedicated external infrastructure.
To achieve this, the research aims to rely exclusively on sensors already available in standard smartphones, such as inertial sensors and digital compasses, in order to estimate the user’s position and movement. This approach avoids the installation of additional technologies within buildings, making the solution easier to deploy and potentially more robust. At the same time, the project seeks to develop methods for converting building maps into digital representations suitable for navigation, enabling continuous and accurate guidance toward the user’s desired destination.
Accessibility is the core focus of the development process. The system is designed to support people with different types of disabilities, particularly visual and motor impairments, through the use of multimodal interfaces. Directions and navigation cues will be delivered through multiple channels, including audio, speech, vibration, and visual components, allowing the system to adapt to the specific needs of each user. Furthermore, the integration of artificial intelligence will make interactions more effective and context-aware, improving users’ autonomy and mobility according to their individual needs.