Spatial Audio–Based Indoor Navigation for Blind and Visually Impaired Users: A SONICOM Demonstration

Furtado H, Calapez L, Campos A, Jagos H. Spatial Audio–Based Indoor Navigation for Blind and Visually Impaired Users: A SONICOM Demonstration. In: AVARIG 2026: Audio for Virtual and Augmented Reality and Immersive Games. Audio Engineering Society; 2026. Paper 477. Available from: https://aes.org/publications/elibrary-page/?id=23369

@inproceedings{Furtado2026_23369,
  author = {Furtado, Hugo and Calapez, Liliana and Campos, Alexandre and Jagos, Harald},
  title = {{Spatial Audio–Based Indoor Navigation for Blind and Visually Impaired Users: A SONICOM Demonstration}},
  booktitle = {AVARIG 2026: Audio for Virtual and Augmented Reality and Immersive Games},
  note = {Paper 477},
  year = {2026},
  month = jun,
  publisher = {Audio Engineering Society},
  url = {https://aes.org/publications/elibrary-page/?id=23369}
}

TY  - CPAPER
TI  - Spatial Audio–Based Indoor Navigation for Blind and Visually Impaired Users: A SONICOM Demonstration
AU  - Furtado, Hugo
AU  - Calapez, Liliana
AU  - Campos, Alexandre
AU  - Jagos, Harald
T2  - AVARIG 2026: Audio for Virtual and Augmented Reality and Immersive Games
M1  - Paper 477
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/06/30
UR  - https://aes.org/publications/elibrary-page/?id=23369
PB  - Audio Engineering Society
LA  - en
AB  - Indoor navigation remains a significant challenge for blind and visually impaired (BVI) individuals, particularly in complex environments where conventional assistive solutions rely on visual interfaces or dedicated infrastructure. Spatial audio offers a non-visual alternative by encoding navigational information as virtual sound sources that can be perceived and followed in three-dimensional space. This paper presents a study conducted within the SONICOM project, evaluating spatial audio guidance for indoor navigation by BVI participants. Twenty-three participants completed three navigation conditions: turn-byturn instructions, spatial audio guidance, and spatial audio guidance with environmental descriptions. Results showed a clear difference between route completion and subjective ratings. Spatial audio guidance led to higher route completion than turnby-turn instructions, while completion time and numerical subjective ratings did not show statistically significant differences between the two methods. Environmental descriptions were rated positively by all participants as improving perception of the surroundings. These findings suggest that real-world navigation scenarios can reveal practical benefits of spatial audio that may not be fully captured by subjective ratings alone.
ER  -