Abstract
The objective of our research was to develop assistive technology for visually impaired people, with a high appreciation for the human potential to achieve, to learn, and to achieve goals. In this document, we describe a virtual white cane made of a combination of a Smartphone and a laser pointer. In our device, the laser pointer beam reflection is captured by the Smartphone camera. The distance from the virtual white cane to the reflection is computed through active triangulation. Then, a personalized vibration, the magnitude of which corresponds to distance, is generated in the Smartphone. In this way, the users receive information that could prevent collisions with obstacles in the environment. Our contributions include the development of a virtual white cane around a Smartphone and other off-the-shelf accessories and a methodology to provide personalized vibratory feedback to the user. Our experiments show that to navigate, our instrument is better option, in terms of travel time, that the use of the hands. However, the travel time is still better using a traditional white cane than our instrument.
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Acknowledgments
We are thankful to Sarah Bruce and Paul Riley of the U.S. Peace Corps/Mexico for editing the document, and to the reviewers whose comments improved greatly the quality of our exposition. This work was partially supported by the Fomix CONACYT-DF under Grant No. 189005 and the Instituto Politcnico Nacional under Grant No. 20131832 for Joaqun Salas.
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Vera, P., Zenteno, D. & Salas, J. A smartphone-based virtual white cane. Pattern Anal Applic 17, 623–632 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10044-013-0328-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10044-013-0328-8