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Improvement of An Electronic Aid for the Blind using Ultrasonic and Acceleration Sensors  

Kim, Lae-Hyun (한국과학기술연구원 지능인터렉션연구센터)
Park, Se-Hyung (한국과학기술연구원 지능인터렉션연구센터)
Lee, Soo-Yong (홍익대학교 기계시스템디자인공학과)
Cho, Hyun-Chul (한국과학기술연구원 지능인터렉션연구센터)
Ha, Sung-Do (한국과학기술연구원 지능시스템본부)
Publication Information
Journal of KIISE:Software and Applications / v.36, no.4, 2009 , pp. 291-297 More about this Journal
Abstract
This paper introduces an electronic travel aid, named SmartWand, which detects obstacles using a ultrasonic sensor. In addition to obstacle detection, the SmartWand senses color information of objects and the environmental brightness. It is designed to be attached to a ordinary white cane in order to detect the obstacles at head-hight which cannot be covered by the cane. We have improved the first version of the SmartWand based on a user evaluation. The second version is much lighter and smaller than the previous one. It has been enhanced by two new functions. The SmartWand eliminates impact errors due to tapping the ground using a moving average filtering algorithm and restricts the detection range to the path in the moving direction using an acceleration sensor. We have tested these functions in various environments to determine the parameters for these functions.
Keywords
Visually Impaired People; Obstacle detection; Ultrasonic sensor; White cane; SmartWand;
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