Pedestrian Navigation Guidance for Elderly People’s Safe and Easy Wayfinding

Abstract: In order to reduce anxiety of pedestrian navigation users, we have proposed a route planning algorithm, which weighs user’s difficulty of locating own current position as well as total physical distance of courses. The cost function for evaluating routes is expanded by adding elapsed time of locating each intersection to the original cost of route distance. The elapsed time at an intersection is estimated based on valuation functions of effectiveness of landmarks. The functions were constructed based on data collected through cognitive experiments with younger participants. The fundamental validity of the proposal method was confirmed through practical experiments. The aim of this study was to extend the object of the navigation guidance method to elderly people, as well as younger people. Considering the degradation of cognitive functions of elderly users, we modified three functions: the valuation functions for recognizability of landmarks, the valuation function of landmark’s effectiveness, and the cost function for route planning. Three cognitive experiments were conducted to acquire actual data for the modification. The results indicate that the functions acquired are quite fit to the data of the experiments, and suggest that the modified method is useful for estimating walking time for routes by elderly users.

Keywords: Navigation System, Elderly Users, Landmarks, Salience, Cognitive Model, Anxiety

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe100636

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