• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
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• 2015.10a
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• pp.522-525
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• 2015

In this paper, we propose a walking aid system that guides route to visually impaired people in order to recognize uncertain obstacles based on tactile stimulation. The proposed system is composed of the touch-based obstacle detection module, the obstacle height detection module, and the route guidance algorithms. The touch-based obstacle detection module detects each obstacle, which is located at left, right, and front of a visually impaired person by stimulating his thumb with the rotational force of the servomotor. The obstacle height detection module integrates detected data by the linear arrangement of ultrasonic sensors to identify the height of an obstacle about 3 of-phase(i.e., high, medium, low). The proposed route guidance algorithm guides an optimized path to the visually impaired person by updating his current position information based on the signal of the built-in GPS receiver in smartphone. In addition, the route guidance algorithm delivers information with speech to a visually impaired person through Bluetooth commuination in the developed route guidance app. The proposed system can create a path to avoid the obstacles by recognizing the placed situation of the obstacles with exploring the uncertain path.

• The Journal of The Korea Institute of Intelligent Transport Systems
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.39-51
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• 2016

In accordance to rapid aging of population, the accidents of elderly pedestrian and pedestrian safety are becoming very important issues. In terms of smartphone technologies, older people are increasingly looking for useful and friendly ICT services that which can add a value on their silver life. This paper introduced a new IT-based service for elderly walking assist using a smart-phone accompanied by a wearable watch. We describe the functional requirements and a systems architecture model with an interface between a smart-phone and wearable watch. Moreover, this study attempted to verify what services are needed and to estimate elderly pedestrians' WTP (willingness to pay) for IT-based walking assistance device. A total of 189 elderly pedestrians were randomly surveyed through face-to-face interviews. The questionnaire consisted of 3 categories: (1) questions pertaining to socio-economic status, (2) 12 questions regarding walking attitudes, and (3) a question to measure WTP. With this gathered data, factor analysis and path model estimating were conducted. The results identified the elderly user requirements and the use-value of new innovative products for IT-based walking assistance services by two groups(latent elderly and elderly). The modeling result shows that elderly's service preference would increase the possibilities for the commercialization of IT-based walking device with improving their walking safety.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.7-13
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• 2004

• Journal of Korea Society of Industrial Information Systems
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.31-38
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• 2020

In this paper, we compare and analyze smart technologies and present six obstacle detection features to help visually impaired people walk. Traditionally, visually impaired people walk with the white cane or a guide dog. With the development of IoT technology, various smart walking aids systems have been developed. Those intelligent walking aids systems have obstacle-detecting systems and route-guidance systems. Many researchers are developing the walking aids system, which detects an obstacle and provides the obstacle information by haptic feedback. Also, they are designing the database server system to share the obstacle information. Particularly the composed system can quickly give an obstacle-avoidance route using shared obstacle information. Smart walking aids systems for visually impaired people will advance more rapidly by applying machine learning and intelligent systems.

• Science of Emotion and Sensibility
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.11-22
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• 2017

For the elderly whose path-finding capability and distance perception abilities have been weakened, the study intends to provide UI design of a wrist type walking aid device which allows the elderly to receive both visual and haptic information that induces the elderly' occasional attention by utilizing currently available haptic technology. The study asked 30 the elderly older than 65 years old, target consumers of the technology, to wear a smart watch and find a path by following the directions provided by four different UI versions of Wizard of Oz. Then, the study has conducted post-experience interview. Quantitative analyses was performed their preference level, number of misguided participants and the number of deviations incurred. Based on the data collected, the study has applied grounded theory, a qualitative research methodology, in order to grasp new understanding about the research, and has consequently reached some significant implications for further research on wrist type walking aid device for the elderly, who show self-contradictory demands.

• Journal of Digital Contents Society
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.279-289
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• 2011

The latest hardware and software techniques are combined to give safe walking guidance and convenient service of realtime walking assistance system for visually impaired person. This system consists of obstacle detection and perception, place recognition, and sign recognition for pedestrian can safely walking to arrive at their destination. In this paper, we exploit the sign object detection system in subway station for sign recognition that one of the important factors of walking assistance system. This paper suggest the adaptive feature map that can be robustly extract the sign object region from complexed environment with light and noise. And recognize a sign using fast zernike moment features which is invariant under translation, rotation and scale of object during walking. We considered three types of signs as arrow, restroom, and exit number and perform the training and recognizing steps through adaboost classifier. The experimental results prove that our method can be suitable and stable for real-time system through yields on the average 87.16% stable detection rate and 20 frame/sec of operation time for three types of signs in 5000 images of sign database.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Computer Information Conference
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• 2022.07a
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• pp.651-652
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• 2022

시각장애인들의 가장 큰 불편함인 보행을 도와주는 수단은 흰 지팡이와 안내견이 전부이다. 이를 개선하고자 본 논문에서는 센서 프로그래밍(초음파 센서로 장애물 인지 후 모터로 진동 전달), led(시각장애인 인지), RFID(교통카드)를 아두이노, IoT 기술을 사용하여 시각장애인 수(약 25만 명)의 비해 턱없이 부족한 안내견들(80여 마리)에 준하는 스마트 지팡이를 구현하였다.

• Journal of the HCI Society of Korea
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.41-47
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• 2019

In this study, a smart assistive device is designed to recognize pedestrian signal and to provide audio instructions for visually impaired people in crossing streets safely. Walking alone is one of the biggest challenges to the visually impaired and it deteriorates their life quality. The proposed device has a camera attached on a pair of glasses which can detect traffic lights, recognize pedestrian signals in real-time using a machine learning algorithm on GPU board and provide audio instructions to the user. For the portability, the dimension of the device is designed to be compact and light but with sufficient battery life. The embedded processor of device is wired to the small camera which is attached on a pair of glasses. Also, on inner part of the leg of the glasses, a bone-conduction speaker is installed which can give audio instructions without blocking external sounds for safety reason. The performance of the proposed device was validated with experiments and it showed 87.0% recall and 100% precision for detecting pedestrian green light, and 94.4% recall and 97.1% precision for detecting pedestrian red light.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.16 no.11
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• pp.2424-2430
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• 2012

The current Navigation System for the Visually Impaired Person has a short and limited communication distance and can't receive enough information from Visually Impaired Person to assist directly. In addition, because the path is dangerous and incomplete for the Visually Impaired Person, moving with White Stick is still inconvenient and dangerous. To solve this problem we implement communication that can send and receive video, voice, location information between the Visually Impaired Person's Smart Portable Navigation System Development and assistant's PC.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
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• 2012.10a
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• pp.289-292
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• 2012

Presently, there is the blind of about 20~300,00 people including didn't register in Korea Usually, they used white stick when they walk outside. There is the blind receiving the help of the guide dog but a small number of blind uses due to many composite problems including the cost problem, and etc. Presently, the guidance service aid long for the blind which is commonly used adheres the RFID tag to the white stick. It remains at the level of the extent of making the cover block and RF communication by using this. The recognition distance is short. This is the actual condition in which it is difficult to determine the location of the clear obstacle and size and form, it doesn't become the help which is actually big in the walk of the blinds. Thus, in this paper, the investigation of 'Smart Portable Navigation System' development of the Cortex-A8 Platform base tries to be handled so that the blinds can walk easily.