A Wearable Supporting System for Visually Impaired People in Operating Capacitive Touchscreen

2011 ◽  
Vol 103 ◽  
pp. 687-694
Author(s):  
Akira Yamawaki ◽  
Serikawa Seiichi

We propose a wearable supporting system with a CMOS image sensor for the visually impaired people in operating capacitive touchscreen. This system attaches the CMOS image sensor without a lens to the tip of the middle finger. The icons and buttons displayed on the touchscreen are replaced to the color barcodes. Touching the surface of the touchscreen with the CMOS image sensor directly, the color barcode is detected and decoded. The decoded results are returned to the user by some interaction like audio. Then, the user touches the button area around the color barcode by the forefinger to operate the target device. This system can provide very easy and natural way for operating the touchscreen to the visually impaired people who usually recognize the materials by the finger. Any mechanical modification of the target device is not needed. The modification can be made by changing its software program. Since the color barcode is sensed by the image sensor without any lens touching the surface of the touchscreen, each bar in the color barcode should be blurred. So, we develop an easy and simple image processing to handle such problem. We design it as the hardware module to achieve the high performance and low-power wearable device. A prototype hardware using an FPGA shows the hardware size, the performance and the actual demonstration.

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (16) ◽  
pp. 3350 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shiwei Chen ◽  
Dayue Yao ◽  
Huiliang Cao ◽  
Chong Shen

Action and identification problems are the challenges that visually impaired people often encounter in their lives. The high price of existing commercial intelligent auxiliary equipment has placed enormous economic pressure on most visually impaired people in developing countries. In order to solve this problem, this paper proposes a smart wearable system that performs image recognition. The system adopts the method of cloud and local cooperative processing. The cloud server mainly performs image processing, while the local unit only uploads images and feedback results. Therefore, the processor of the system does not need to use expensive high-performance hardware, and the cost is greatly reduced. Moreover, the algorithm running on the cloud server can also guarantee the speed and accuracy of recognition. In addition, we have changed the traditional video continuous scanning strategy to a mechanism for capturing points of interest, reducing power consumption. The attitude correction mechanism based on error codes of the system can effectively help the visually impaired to cope with the common living scenes, and the multiple priority feedbacks and arbitration mechanism will ensure real-time feedback of the system. The proposed smart wearable device has been tested in the actual scene, which proves to be helpful to the visually impaired people. It helps them find the right people and objects and read text.


This paper describes a obstacle detection system for visually impaired people using Image processing in MATLAB.This system, together with ultra-sonic sensor interfaced with Arduino detects stairs and doors with or without signage and distance of these objects from the user. This information is conveyed to the user through a speaker. The results show satisfactory accuracy in detecting stairs and extracting different signage on doors such as that of washroom, exit, elevator etc.


2017 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 214-238 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ter-Feng Wu ◽  
Pu-Sheng Tsai ◽  
Nien-Tsu Hu ◽  
Jen-Yang Chen

Purpose Visually impaired people have long been living in the dark. They cannot realize the colorful world with their vision, so they rely on hearing, touch and smell to feel the space they live in. Lacking image information, they face challenges in the external environment and barrier spaces. They face danger that is hundreds of times higher than that faced by normal people. Especially during outdoor activities, they can only explore the surrounding environment aided by their hearing and crutches and then based on a vague impression speculate where they are located. To let the blind confidently take each step, this paper proposes sticking the electronic tag of the radio-frequency identification (RFID) system on the back of guide bricks. Design/methodology/approach Thus, the RFID reader, ultrasonic sensor and voice chip on a wheeled mobile robot link the front end to the crutch. Once the blind person nears a guide brick, the RFID will read the message on the tag through the voice broadcast system, and a voice will inform the visually impaired person of the direction to walk and information of the surrounding environment. In addition, the CMOS image sensor set up in the wheeled mobile robot is used to detect the black marking on the guide brick and to guide the blind to walk forward or turn around between the two markings. Finally, the lithium battery charging control unit was installed on the wheeled mobile robot. The ATtiny25 microcontroller conducts the battery charge and discharge control and monitoring of the current battery capacity. Findings The development of this system will let visually impaired people acquire environmental information, road guidance function and nearby traffic information. Originality/value Through rich spatial environment messages, the blind can have the confidence and courage to go outside.


CICTP 2020 ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ammar Muhammad ◽  
Qizhou Hu ◽  
Muhammad Tayyab ◽  
Yikai Wu ◽  
Muhammad Ahtsham

Author(s):  
Olga Novikova ◽  

The special library acts as the cultural and educational center for visually impaired people, and as the center for continuing education. The multifunctional performance of the library is substantiated. The joint projects accomplished in cooperation with theatres and museums and aimed at integrating the visually impaired people into the society are described. Advanced training projects for the library professionals accomplished in 2018 are discussed.


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