Assisted Spatial Cognition Through Vision-Language Models· 通过视觉-语言模型辅助的空间认知
Multimodal AI, powered by Large Language Models (LLMs) and Vision-Language Models (VLMs), is transforming assistive technologies by enabling simultaneous processing of visual and textual data. This advancement holds significant promise for over 43 million visually impaired and neuro-divergent individuals worldwide who face persistent challenges in navigating indoor and outdoor environments due to limited spatial awareness and insufficient environmental cues. Existing navigation aids often lack comprehensive 3D scene understanding, relying on constrained route-based strategies that hinder user autonomy. In this paper, we introduce a novel end-to-end framework that integrates LLMs, VLMs and digital twin technologies to deliver a spatially cognitive navigation support for visually impaired an