Mobility and orientation aid for blind persons using artificial vision

Blind or vision-impaired persons are limited in their normal life activities. Mobility and orientation of blind persons is an ever-present research subject because no total solution has yet been reached for these activities that pose certain risks for the affected persons. The current work presents the design and development of a device conceived on capturing environment information through stereoscopic vision. The images captured by a couple of video cameras are transferred and processed by configurable and sequential FPGA and DSP devices that issue action signals to a tactile feedback system. Optimal processing algorithms are implemented to perform this feedback in real time. The components selected permit portability; that is, to readily get used to wearing the device.

[1]  José L. González-Mora,et al.  Development of a New Space Perception System for Blind People, Based on the Creation of a Virtual Acoustic Space , 1999, IWANN.

[2]  Lynette A. Jones,et al.  Development of a tactile vest , 2004, 12th International Symposium on Haptic Interfaces for Virtual Environment and Teleoperator Systems, 2004. HAPTICS '04. Proceedings..

[3]  Azeddine Beghdadi,et al.  An audiodisplay tool for visually impaired people: the sound screen system , 2001, Proceedings of the Sixth International Symposium on Signal Processing and its Applications (Cat.No.01EX467).

[4]  Changming Sun,et al.  Fast Stereo Matching Using Rectangular Subregioning and 3D Maximum-Surface Techniques , 2002, International Journal of Computer Vision.

[5]  Joseph D. Bronzino,et al.  The Biomedical Engineering Handbook , 1995 .

[6]  R. Kowalik,et al.  An ultrasonic obstacle detector based on phase beamforming principles , 2006, IEEE Sensors Journal.

[7]  N. Debnath,et al.  A mobility aid for the blind with discrete distance indicator and hanging object detection , 2004, 2004 IEEE Region 10 Conference TENCON 2004..

[8]  C. Trullemans,et al.  A real-time experimental prototype for enhancement of vision rehabilitation using auditory substitution , 1998, IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering.

[9]  Albert M. Cook,et al.  Assistive Technologies: Principles and Practice , 1995 .