# Indoor-Guided Navigation for People Who Are Blind: Crowdsourcing for Route Mapping and Assistance
## 5 Web-Crowd-Assisted Social Networking Implications for Navigation Indoors  
In the presented approach, following the information provided in the previous section, indoor objects and routes in the building can first be explored and recorded by sighted volunteers using the proposed ETA (electronic traveling aid) system's interface (see Figures 3-5). That is, volunteers go through the indoor routes, comment on objects, and mark key guidance points (i.e., provide visual and semantic comments of location ID points). In this way, sighted volunteers mark indoor landscapes, map navigational directions, and make comments using the system's web-crowd-assisted interface (mode#8). Data are collected, for instance, in the web cloud database (DB). Route updates are constantly sent from the volunteers and people who are BSVI using the proposed ETA system. This novel system works through social networking as relatives, neighbors, friends, and other people voluntarily and periodically use the ETA system to record the indoor routes that are most important for people who are BSVI (see Figure 5). Figure 14: The system controller output to drive vibration motors. Figure 13: Tactile display. It is important to note that even various daily changing indoor situations, such as renovations, furniture movements, closed doors, etc., can be recorded and updated continuously by volunteers through social networking in the web cloud DB. In unrecognized situations, the trained ETA system can either guide the user around an obstacle or suggest another route. Thus, the presented innovative web-crowd-assisted method enables BSVI users to obtain the latest information about indoor route suitability. In the web cloud DB, routes are analyzed, summarized, and enhanced using volunteers' records of multisensory data (location points' visual and semantic ID) and third-party information (e.g., building floor plans, indoor maps such as OpenStreetMaps, etc. ; see Figure 15. The best statistical options for successful navigation are estimated each day in the web cloud DB using deep neural networks or other computational-intelligence-based methods (see Equation (1)). People who are BSVI can utilize processed navigational routes stored in the web cloud DB using the ETA system. They obtain interactive indoor maps enhanced by the third parties' geospatial data, such as digitalized floor escape plans. In this way, BSVI users, based on their preferences, can choose faster, shorter, stair-free, most-used, best-rated, most recent, or other route options. After practical experience with a route, BSVI users (and correspondingly the ETA system) can rate the route's validity, making personal averaged ratings ascribed to the route (ascribed to the volunteer who recorded it). This allows other BSVI to choose from the best-rated routes and to obtain offline guidance from the best-rated volunteers (sighted users; see Figure 15). From an extended search of related patents and a literature review, we found that this ETA-guided system enhancement method for indoor navigation a priori using a web-crowd-assisted interface for indoor route mapping with users' feedback is unique [12; 13]. Figure 15: Web-crowd-assisted method for indoor routing enhancement and optimization in the first modality using ETA system functionality. Next, it is important to note that indoor route mapping by volunteers with the ETA system allows route optimization for navigation in the first modality (see Figures 3 and 4). Consequently, in the next (second) modality, people who are BSVI can use the enhanced and optimized routes for orientation and navigation indoors. In the proposed approach, based on individual BSVI needs and preferences, the navigational ETA system helps to choose suitable route options (e.g., shortest, fastest, stair-free, guided by top-rated volunteers, etc.) using deep neural networks that provide the route's object classes, location IDs, destinations, scenes, and semantic information step-by-step. The route, which is adjusted to the individual's needs, can work online or offline.