• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.12 no.6
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• pp.568-572
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• 2006

This paper presents the device of recognizing image of the studded paving blocks, transmitting, the information by vibration to a visually handicapped person. Usually the blind uses the walking stick to recognize the studded paving block. This research uses a PCA (Principal Component Analysis) based image processing approach for recognizing the paving blocks. We classify the studded paving blocks into 5 classes, that is, vertical line block, right-declined line block, left-declined line block, dotted block and flat block. The 8 images for each of 5 classes are captured for each block by 112*120 pixels, then the eigenvectors are obtained in magnitude order of eigenvectors by using principal component analysis. The principal components for images can be calculated using projection of transformation matrix composed of eigenvectors. The classification has been executed using Euclidean's distance, so the block having minimum distance with a image is chosen as matched one. The result of classification is transmitted to the blind by electric vibration signals with different magnitudes and frequencies.