A PDA based artificial human vision simulator

Much recent research attention has focused on providing some form of visually meaningful information to blind people through electrical stimulation of a component of the visual system. Current technology limits the number of perceived points of light (phosphenes) that can be provided to a user and methods are required to optimize the amount of presented information. This paper describes a PDA based artificial human vision simulator, and proposes a method for alerting a user of possible looming obstacles. Experimental results indicate that obstacle alerts can be successfully provided, however with the current simulator components, high-quality lighting and accurate image segmentation is critical for reducing the number of false alerts.