In recent decades, several assistive technologies have been developed for visually impaired and blind (VIB) individuals to improve their ability to navigate independently and safely. At the same time, simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) techniques have become sufficiently robust and efficient to be adopted in the development of these assistive technologies. In this paper, we first report the results of an anonymous worldwide survey conducted with VIB people to understand their experiences, needs, and challenges in navigation, differentiating our approach from prior work that often has a limited geographic scope and focuses on specific challenges. We then present a systematic literature review of recent studies on SLAM-based solutions for VIB people. This review explores various SLAM techniques employed in this context. We discuss the advantages and limitations of these techniques for VIB navigation. Moreover, we examined a range of challenging situations addressed in the studies included in this review. We explain how SLAM-based solutions offer potential to improve the ability of visually impaired individuals to navigate effectively. Finally, we present future opportunities and challenges in this domain.

翻译：近几十年来，针对视障与盲人（VIB）群体，已开发出多种辅助技术以提升其独立、安全导航能力。与此同时，同时定位与地图构建（SLAM）技术已发展到足够稳健和高效的程度，可应用于这些辅助技术的研发。本文首先报告了一项面向VIB人群的全球匿名问卷调查结果，该调查旨在了解他们在导航过程中的体验、需求与挑战，这与以往常局限于特定地理范围或具体问题的研究方法有所不同。随后，我们对近年基于SLAM的VIB辅助解决方案研究进行了系统性文献综述，探讨了该领域采用的各种SLAM技术，分析了这些技术在视障导航中的优势与局限性。此外，我们考察了综述纳入研究中涉及的一系列挑战性场景，阐释了基于SLAM的解决方案如何提升视障人士有效导航的能力。最后，我们展望了该领域的未来机遇与挑战。