Development of Vision Substitute System by Using Robot Arm

In this paper, we propose a presentation system of virtual 3D shape information for visually handicapped persons. For displaying a virtual 3D shape, an industrial robot arm is used. A user of the proposed system touches a small plate that is attached to a tip of the robot arm by one hand and drives the arm by moving another hand freely on a guide plane. As the hand moves on the guide plane, the plate successively displays a tangential plane of a 3D shape that is stored in the PC beforehand. Since users can move the hand freely, they can perceive virtual objects with their own will. The experiment was conducted for 22 normal subjects and one visually handicapped with 4 kinds of simple 3D shapes. After the subject touches the virtual shape, it touches a real object and judges whether the two shapes are same or not. The experimental results show that the proposed system is useful for the vision substitute system.