Demonstration and Evaluation of an Eyes-Free Mobile Navigation System

Abstract

Loss of awareness in one’s immediate surroundings can have devastating results when navigating. For instance, military operators must often navigate in unfamiliar environments and must be able to detect nearby threats to survive. Visual displays such as paper or digital maps can draw visual attention away from one’s environment. We developed a navigation display that guides a user through a series of waypoints by playing a 3D audio tone over headphones or vibrating a tactor on an array around the torso. We evaluated the navigation display by having participants navigate through 32 waypoints in an open field. In addition to evaluating auditory and vibrotactile cues, we considered an analog visual cue, an allocentric map, and an egocentric map. Participants were able to reach all waypoints in every condition. Results suggest that the participants reached waypoints fastest with the egocentric map. Additionally, participants were slightly faster with the auditory cue than with the vibrotactile cue. Subjective workload and usability questionnaires found that both of these conditions were not mentally demanding and highly usable. These results help support the development of eye-free mobile navigation tools.