Assessing Current Information Delivery for the Visually Impaired

In Denmark, digitization has led to the decline of the “talking newspaper” compact disc (CD) mailing system, resulting in an information gap for the visually impaired. Sponsored by the Danish Association of the Blind (DAB), this report aims to recommend approaches for the timely distribution of DAISY formatted current information to the visually impaired. By communicating with various organizations and conducting a device evaluation with the visually impaired themselves, we recommended a multi-system approach with calling, assistive technology (AT), and smartphone compatibility, an active teaching and awareness program, and a collaboration between organizations for distributing current information effectively to the visually impaired

Autonomous Pedestrian Detection in Transit Buses

This project created a proof of concept for an automated pedestrian detection and avoidance system designed for transit buses. The system detects objects up to 12 meters away, calculates the distance from the system using a solid-state LIDAR, and determines if that object is human by passive infrared. This triggers a visual and sound warning. A Xilinx Zynq-SoC utilizing programmable logic and an ARM-based processing system drive data fusion, and an external power unit makes it configurable for transit-buses