A wearable system for mobility improvement of visually impaired people

Degradation of the visual system can lead to a dramatic reduction of mobility by limiting a person to his sense of touch and hearing. This paper presents the development of an obstacle detection system for visually impaired people. While moving in his environment the user is alerted to close obstacles in range. The system we propose detects an obstacle surrounding the user by using a multi-sonar system and sending appropriate vibrotactile feedback. The system aims at increasing the mobility of visually impaired people by offering new sensing abilitie

AmIE: An Ambient Intelligent Environment for Assisted Living

In the modern world of technology Internet-of-things (IoT) systems strives to provide an extensive interconnected and automated solutions for almost every life aspect. This paper proposes an IoT context-aware system to present an Ambient Intelligence (AmI) environment; such as an apartment, house, or a building; to assist blind, visually-impaired, and elderly people. The proposed system aims at providing an easy-to-utilize voice-controlled system to locate, navigate and assist users indoors. The main purpose of the system is to provide indoor positioning, assisted navigation, outside weather information, room temperature, people availability, phone calls and emergency evacuation when needed. The system enhances the user's awareness of the surrounding environment by feeding them with relevant information through a wearable device to assist them. In addition, the system is voice-controlled in both English and Arabic languages and the information are displayed as audio messages in both languages. The system design, implementation, and evaluation consider the constraints in common types of premises in Kuwait and in challenges, such as the training needed by the users. This paper presents cost-effective implementation options by the adoption of a Raspberry Pi microcomputer, Bluetooth Low Energy devices and an Android smart watch.Comment: 6 pages, 8 figures, 1 tabl

State of the art review on walking support system for visually impaired people

The technology for terrain detection and walking support system for blind people has rapidly been improved the last couple of decades but to assist visually impaired people may have started long ago. Currently, a variety of portable or wearable navigation system is available in the market to help the blind for navigating their way in his local or remote area. The focused category in this work can be subgroups as electronic travel aids (ETAs), electronic orientation aids (EOAs) and position locator devices (PLDs). However, we will focus mainly on electronic travel aids (ETAs). This paper presents a comparative survey among the various portable or wearable walking support systems as well as informative description (a subcategory of ETAs or early stages of ETAs) with its working principal advantages and disadvantages so that the researchers can easily get the current stage of assisting blind technology along with the requirement for optimising the design of walking support system for its users

Wearable Urban Mobility Assistive Device for Visually Impaired Pedestrians Using a Smartphone and a Tactile-Foot Interface

This paper reports on the progress of a wearable assistive technology (AT) device designed to enhance the independent, safe, and efficient mobility of blind and visually impaired pedestrians in outdoor environments. Such device exploits the smartphone’s positioning and computing capabilities to locate and guide users along urban settings. The necessary navigation instructions to reach a destination are encoded as vibrating patterns which are conveyed to the user via a foot-placed tactile interface. To determine the performance of the proposed AT device, two user experiments were conducted. The first one requested a group of 20 voluntary normally sighted subjects to recognize the feedback provided by the tactile-foot interface. The results showed recognition rates over 93%. The second experiment involved two blind voluntary subjects which were assisted to find target destinations along public urban pathways. Results show that the subjects successfully accomplished the task and suggest that blind and visually impaired pedes-trians might find the AT device and its concept approach useful, friendly, fast to master, and easy to use

Are wearable electronic vision enhancement systems (wEVES) beneficial for people with age-related macular degeneration? A scoping review

INTRODUCTION: Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the most common cause of irreversible visual impairment in the United Kingdom. It has a wide-ranging detrimental impact on daily living, including impairment of functional ability and quality of life. Assistive technology designed to overcome this impairment includes wearable electronic vision enhancement systems (wEVES). This scoping review assesses the usefulness of these systems for people with AMD. METHODS: Four databases (Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, PubMed, Web of Science and Cochrane CENTRAL) were searched to identify papers that investigated image enhancement with a head-mounted electronic device on a sample population that included people with AMD. RESULTS: Thirty-two papers were included: 18 studied the clinical and functional benefits of wEVES, 11 investigated use and usability and 3 discussed sickness and adverse effects. CONCLUSIONS: Wearable electronic vision enhancement systems provide hands-free magnification and image enhancement producing significant improvements in acuity, contrast sensitivity and aspects of laboratory-simulated daily activity. Adverse effects were infrequent, minor and spontaneously resolved with the removal of the device. However, when symptoms arose, they sometimes persisted with continued device usage. There are multi-factorial influences and a diversity of user opinions on promotors to successful device use. These factors are not exclusively driven by visual improvement and incorporate other issues including device weight, ease of use and inconspicuous design. There is insufficient evidence of any cost-benefit analysis for wEVES. However, it has been shown that a user's decision to make a purchase evolves over time, with their estimates of cost falling below the retail price of the devices. Additional research is needed to understand the specific and distinct benefits of wEVES for people with AMD. Further patient-centred research should assess the benefits of wEVES in user-led activities when directly compared with alternative coping strategies, allowing professionals and users to make better prescribing and purchasing decisions

Vision-Based Tactile Paving Detection Method in Navigation Systems for Visually Impaired Persons

In general, a visually impaired person relies on guide canes in order to walk outside besides depending only on a tactile pavement as a warning and directional tool in order to avoid any obstructions or hazardous situations. However, still a lot of training is needed in order to recognize the tactile pattern, and it is quite difficult for persons who have recently become visually impaired. This chapter describes the development and evaluation of vision-based tactile paving detection method for visually impaired persons. Some experiments will be conducted on how it works to detect the tactile pavement and identify the shape of tactile pattern. In this experiment, a vision-based method is proposed by using MATLAB including the Arduino platform and speaker as guidance tools. The output of this system based on the result found from tactile detection in MATLAB then produces auditory output and notifies the visually impaired about the type of tactile detected. Consequently, the development of tactile pavement detection system can be used by visually impaired persons for easy detection and navigation purposes