Safe Local Navigation for Visually Impaired Users With a Time-of-Flight and Haptic Feedback Device

This paper presents ALVU (Array of Lidars and Vibrotactile Units), a contactless, intuitive, hands-free, and discreet wearable device that allows visually impaired users to detect low- and high-hanging obstacles, as well as physical boundaries in their immediate environment. The solution allows for safe local navigation in both confined and open spaces by enabling the user to distinguish free space from obstacles. The device presented is composed of two parts: a sensor belt and a haptic strap. The sensor belt is an array of time-of-flight distance sensors worn around the front of a user's waist, and the pulses of infrared light provide reliable and accurate measurements of the distances between the user and surrounding obstacles or surfaces. The haptic strap communicates the measured distances through an array of vibratory motors worn around the user's upper abdomen, providing haptic feedback. The linear vibration motors are combined with a point-loaded pretensioned applicator to transmit isolated vibrations to the user. We validated the device's capability in an extensive user study entailing 162 trials with 12 blind users. Users wearing the device successfully walked through hallways, avoided obstacles, and detected staircases.Andrea Bocelli FoundationNational Science Foundation (U.S.) (Grant NSF IIS1226883

INSPEX: Make environment perception available as a portable system

International audienceObstacle avoidance systems for autonomous vehicles combine multiple sensing technologies (i.e. LiDAR, Radar, Ultrasound and Visual) to detect different types of obstacles across the full range of lighting and weather conditions. Sensor data are fused with vehicle orientation (obtained for instance from an Inertial Measurement Unit and/or compass) and navigation subsystems. Power hungry, they require powerful computational capability, which limits their use to high-end vehicles and robots. 2 INSPEX ambition The H2020 INSPEX project plans to make obstacle detection capabilities available as a personal portable multi-sensors, miniaturised, low power device. This device will detect, locate and warn of obstacles under different environmental conditions, in indoor/outdoor environments, with static and mobile obstacles. Potential applications range from safer human navigation in reduced visibility conditions (e.g. for first responders and fire brigades), small robot/drone obstacle avoidance systems to navigation for the visually and mobility impaired people. As primary demonstrator (Fig.1), we will plug the INSPEX device on a white cane (see Fig. 1) for Visually Impaired and Blind (VIB) people to detect obstacle over the whole person height, provide audio feedback about harmful obstacles, improve their mobility confidence and reduce injuries, especially at waist and head levels [1]. The device will offer a "safety cocoon" to its user

Spatial context-aware person-following for a domestic robot

Domestic robots are in the focus of research in terms of service providers in households and even as robotic companion that share the living space with humans. A major capability of mobile domestic robots that is joint exploration of space. One challenge to deal with this task is how could we let the robots move in space in reasonable, socially acceptable ways so that it will support interaction and communication as a part of the joint exploration. As a step towards this challenge, we have developed a context-aware following behav- ior considering these social aspects and applied these together with a multi-modal person-tracking method to switch between three basic following approaches, namely direction-following, path-following and parallel-following. These are derived from the observation of human-human following schemes and are activated depending on the current spatial context (e.g. free space) and the relative position of the interacting human. A combination of the elementary behaviors is performed in real time with our mobile robot in different environments. First experimental results are provided to demonstrate the practicability of the proposed approach

A robot swarm assisting a human fire-fighter

Emergencies in industrial warehouses are a major concern for fire-fighters. The large dimensions, together with the development of dense smoke that drastically reduces visibility, represent major challenges. The GUARDIANS robot swarm is designed to assist fire-fighters in searching a large warehouse. In this paper we discuss the technology developed for a swarm of robots assisting fire-fighters. We explain the swarming algorithms that provide the functionality by which the robots react to and follow humans while no communication is required. Next we discuss the wireless communication system, which is a so-called mobile ad-hoc network. The communication network provides also the means to locate the robots and humans. Thus, the robot swarm is able to provide guidance information to the humans. Together with the fire-fighters we explored how the robot swarm should feed information back to the human fire-fighter. We have designed and experimented with interfaces for presenting swarm-based information to human beings

Smart Third Eye with Optimum and Safe Path Detection Based On Neural Networks for Blind Persons Using Raspberry-Pi

Blindness is the condition of lacking the visual sight due to physiological or neurological factors and partial blindness is due to lack of integration in the growth of the optic nerve or visual centre of the eye. In this proposed work, a simple, cheap, friendly user, virtual eye will be designed and implemented to improve the mobility of both blind and visually impaired people in a specific area. The proposed work includes a set of ultrasonic sensors for detection, raspberry-pi tool kit for programming and implementation,earphone for speech signal, hand stick(with sensors) using neural network. The main section of this project ultrasonic sensors which are used to scan a predetermined area around blind by emitting the waves.The rejected signals received from the barriers objects are used as inputs to raspberry-pi.Raspberry-pi carry out the issued commands and then communicate the status of a given appliances or device back to the earphone using raspberry-pi as speech. Also, this concept is cheap, fast and easy to use and an innovative a ordable solution to blind and visually impaired people

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

公共空間における視覚障害者の自立移動支援

早大学位記番号:新9136早稲田大

Wearable obstacle avoidance electronic travel aids for blind and visually impaired individuals : a systematic review

Background Wearable obstacle avoidance electronic travel aids (ETAs) have been developed to assist the safe displacement of blind and visually impaired individuals (BVIs) in indoor/outdoor spaces. This systematic review aimed to understand the strengths and weaknesses of existing ETAs in terms of hardware functionality, cost, and user experience. These elements may influence the usability of the ETAs and are valuable in guiding the development of superior ETAs in the future. Methods Formally published studies designing and developing the wearable obstacle avoidance ETAs were searched for from six databases from their inception to April 2023. The PRISMA 2020 and APISSER guidelines were followed. Results Eighty-nine studies were included for analysis, 41 of which were judged to be of moderate to high quality. Most wearable obstacle avoidance ETAs mainly depend on camera- and ultrasonic-based techniques to achieve perception of the environment. Acoustic feedback was the most common human-computer feedback form used by the ETAs. According to user experience, the efficacy and safety of the device was usually their primary concern. Conclusions Although many conceptualised ETAs have been designed to facilitate BVIs' independent navigation, most of these devices suffer from shortcomings. This is due to the nature and limitations of the various processors, environment detection techniques and human-computer feedback those ETAs are equipped with. Integrating multiple techniques and hardware into one ETA is a way to improve performance, but there is still a need to address the discomfort of wearing the device and the high-cost. Developing an applicable systematic review guideline along with a credible quality assessment tool for these types of studies is also required. © 2013 IEEE