Assistive Technologies for Visually Impaired People

In this paper an overview of different types of assistive technologies is presented. Some of the most important aspects for the visually impaired are the solutions and assistance devices for the daily life. A simple categorization of this type of assistance devices is presented. Another important aspect for the visually impaired people is the indoor/outdoor navigation in dynamically changing environment. The technological advancement made possible the creation of different electronic equipments to help visually impaired/disabled persons in their navigation, such as different navigation systems, obstacle avoidance, object/obstacle localization, orientation assistance systems, in order to extend or change the basic support of guidance dogs and the white cane. In the paper a solution to integrate different assistive technologies is proposed, focusing on navigation and object detection, with the use of intelligent feedback by Human Computer Interfaces (HCI) with implication of Head- related transfer function HRTF functions. The paper is composed of three sections. In the first part a general description of the paper is presented. In the following section, entitled "Assistive technology", two main aspects are discussed: assistive technology for daily life and assistive technology for navigation and orientation of visually impaired. From the assistive systems for daily life, the following most important aspects/subjects are presented: personal care, timekeeping, alarms, food preparation and consumption, environmental control/household appliances, money, finance and shopping. Finally some conclusion is presented. The paper is a comprehensive overview of the literature and it does not contain implementation results.

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