Environmental Localization Mapping and Guidance for Visual Prosthesis Users

This study is driven by the hypothesis that independent navigation by blind users of visual prosthetic devices can be greatly aided by use of an autonomous navigational aid that provides information about the environment and guidance for navigation through multimodal sensory cues. For this study, the investigators developed a navigation system that uses on-board sensing to map the user's environment and compute navigable paths to desired destinations in real-time. Information regarding obstacles and directional guidance is communicated to the user via a combination of sensory modalities including limited vision (through the user's visual prosthesis), haptic, and audio cues. This study evaluates how effectively this navigational aid improves prosthetic vision users' ability to perform navigational tasks. The participants for this study include both retinal prosthesis users of the Argus II Retinal Prosthesis System (Argus II) and normally sighted individuals who use a virtual reality headset to simulate the limited vision of the Argus II system.