A Smart Vision Based Navigation Aid for the Visually Impaired

Due to the ever increasing number of blind and visually impaired people in the world, there has been a great amount of research dedicated to the design of assistive technologies to support them. The various assistive technologies apply different techniques including laser, ultrasonic sensors and image processing. Autonomous navigation is a significant challenge for the visually impaired, it makes life uncomfortable for them and poses serious safety issues. In this paper we review the progress made so far in vision based systems and propose an approach for developing navigation aids through techniques used in other autonomous systems like self-driving vehicles. The proposed system uses a front camera to capture images and then produces commensurate guiding audio signals that allow the user freely move in their environment. An extra rear camera is included to allow the user to obtain more information about the scene. Care is taken however not to overload the user with information. The proposed method is tested both in indoor and outdoor scenes and is effective in notifying the user for any obstacles. The goal of this paper is to propose a model for and to develop subsystems for an intelligent, high performance, affordable and easy to use image based navigation aid for the visually impaired.