Abstract

LENGUA, ISMAEL; DUNAI, LARISA; PERIS FAJARNES, GUILLERMO  and  DEFEZ, BEATRIZ. NAVIGATION DEVICE FOR BLIND PEOPLE BASED ON TIME-OF-FLIGHT TECHNOLOGY. Dyna rev.fac.nac.minas [online]. 2013, vol.80, n.179, pp.33-41. ISSN 0012-7353.

The paper presents a new navigation and object detector device for blind people based on Time-of-Flight technology and acoustic sounds. The device has been developed as a complementary device for blind people. Its main objective is to detect and localize the obstacles from the environment and inform to the user about their presence through acoustic sounds, both in distance and in azimuth. The device working area is from 0,5m up to 5m in distance and between 30° left and 30° right of the human head, with a precision of 0,9°. The device architecture is based on glasses which contain a 3D-CMOS sensor, an FPGA with the whole electronics and software. After a short experimental period it was possible to demonstrate the importance of the development of such device for the blind community. Due to the acoustic device, blind users were able to detect obstacles from the environment, localize and avoid them.

Keywords : 3D-CMOS sensor; acoustic sounds; obstacle detector device; blind people.

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