Informed search algorithm for route optimization for visually impaired people: possibility of intelligent assistive technology

Abstract

About 200 million people with disabilities live with difficulties to carry out some daily activity. A significant portion of these people have visual impairment, in which such assistive technologies (AT) do not minimise the difficulties faced for safe access in everyday environments. To enable the AT to these people it is necessary to embark on artificial intelligence techniques, promoting the smart assistive technologies (SAT). The SAT have a processing that dynamically adapts to the person’s conditions and to the characteristics of the environment. The objective of this research was to develop an algorithm based on the informed search technique to optimise the routes for people with visual impairment. The algorithm was validated on 1600 combinations and optimised 52.8% of the simulations. This research presents relevant social potential, as it generates a SAT capable of assisting the decision-making of people with visual impairment.