Cruise Control for Pedestrians

Pedestrian navigation systems require users to perceive, interpret,and react to navigation information. This can tax cognitionas navigation information competes with informationfrom the real world. We propose actuated navigation, a newkind of pedestrian navigation in which the user does not needto attend to the navigation task at all. An actuation signal isdirectly sent to the human motor system to influence walkingdirection. To achieve this goal we stimulate the sartoriusmuscle using electrical muscle stimulation. The rotation occursduring the swing phase of the leg and can easily be counteracted.The user therefore stays in control. We discuss theproperties of actuated navigation and present a lab study onidentifying basic parameters of the technique as well as anoutdoor study in a park. The results show that our approachchanges a user’s walking direction by about 16°/m on averageand that the system can successfully steer users in a park withcrowded areas, distractions, obstacles, and uneven ground.