Assistive Technology Proposal to help Visually Impaired people in obstacle detection

  • Carlos Almeida UFC
  • Petrucio Filho UFC
  • Iury Rosal UFC
  • Rafael Gonçalves UFC
  • Paulo Aguilar UFC
  • M. Simone M. Nunes UFPA
  • Marcelo Martins UFC

Abstract


The World Health Organization indicates that globally there are 39.5 million blind people and 246 million with low vision. In Brazil, 500 thousand are blind, according to research by IBGE. Social inclusion and accessible tools are crucial to support this population with limited mobility; however, obstacles above waist level (such as walls and branches) pose challenges for visually impaired individuals, causing frequent accidents. One solution is a wearable glasses prototype that detects such obstacles using a position detection sensor, with a filter to reduce noise. An Android application provides three types of feedback on obstacles, while laboratory experiments demonstrated specificity of 65.62%, sensitivity of 78.12%, and precision of 69.44%.

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Published
2024-07-21
ALMEIDA, Carlos; FILHO, Petrucio; ROSAL, Iury; GONÇALVES, Rafael; AGUILAR, Paulo; NUNES, M. Simone M.; MARTINS, Marcelo. Assistive Technology Proposal to help Visually Impaired people in obstacle detection. In: INTEGRATED SOFTWARE AND HARDWARE SEMINAR (SEMISH), 51. , 2024, Brasília/DF. Anais [...]. Porto Alegre: Sociedade Brasileira de Computação, 2024 . p. 288-299. ISSN 2595-6205. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5753/semish.2024.3158.