Search tasks can be challenging for blind or visually impaired people. To determine an object's location and to navigate there, they often rely on the limited sensory capabilities of a white cane, ...search haptically, or ask for help. We introduce MR-Sense, a mixed reality assistant to support search and navigation tasks. The system is designed in a participatory fashion and utilizes sensory data of a standalone mixed reality head-mounted display to perform deep learning-driven object recognition and environment mapping. The user is supported in object search tasks via spatially mapped audio and vibrotactile feedback. We conducted a preliminary user study including ten blind or visually impaired participants and a final user evaluation with thirteen blind or visually impaired participants. The final study reveals that MR-Sense alone cannot replace the cane but provides a valuable addition in terms of usability and task load. We further propose a standardized evaluation setup for replicable studies and highlight relevant potentials and challenges fostering future work towards employing technology in accessibility.
In this paper, we develop a smart navigation aid system for blind and visually impaired people (BVIP). The proposed design revolves around a decision support system based on fuzzy logic, a Raspberry ...Pi4 board for real-time processing, a set of high-performance sensors, and a haptic voice interface to guide the user. The control architecture is based on the Robot Operating System (ROS) which takes care of connecting all the different nodes of the system and generates the decision in the form of a voice haptic message. A security assessment system is implemented using sensor data fusion and a fuzzy classifier to determine the human security path. Experimental tests carried out by BVIP in different environments have shown the effectiveness of the developed solution.
•Obstacle detection system for Visually Impaired Persons’ assistance navigation.•An improved version of the YOLO v5 network.•Mix of two datasets for indoor and outdoor object detection.•A lightweight ...embedded implementation on a Xilinx ZCU 102 board.•High-performance results in terms of detection accuracy and processing speed.
Blind and Visually Impaired (BVI) persons encounter safety problems during their navigation. Therefore, assisting BVI must be addressed. Obstacle detection and avoidance in real scenes present very challenging tasks. To handle this challenge, we suggested developing a new obstacle detection system based on an enhanced YOLO v5 neural network. The improved network architecture increased both the network's speed and the detection accuracy. This was achieved by integrating the DenseNet into the YOLO v5 backbone, which impacted the reuse of features and data transfer with additional modifications. Aiming to ensure an embedded implementation of the proposed work on a ZCU 102 board, we applied two compression techniques: channel pruning and quantization. The performance of the suggested system in terms of detection and processing speed showed very encouraging results. In fact, it achieves a detection accuracy of 83.42% and a detection speed of 43 Frame Per Second (FPS).
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Highlights: There is a significant positive relationship between social physique anxiety and the symptoms of eating disorder. Girls who have high social physique anxiety are more likely to develop ...dietary behaviors. Overeating eating behavior is seen in those boys who have high social physique anxiety. Abstract Background: This study aimed to investigate the relationship between social physique anxiety and nutritional behaviors among male and female students of the university. Methods: The research was descriptive-correlational. The statistical population consisted of all students of the University of Tehran in 2020, from which 221 people (females: n=110) and (male: n=111) (mean age: 21.12 ± 2.6 years) were randomly selected and completed the Social Physique Anxiety and Eating Disorders questionnaires. The Social Physique Anxiety Scale was used to collect data and the Garner and Garfinkel 26-item Eating Disorder Questionnaire was used to assess nutritional behaviors. The Pearson correlation test was used to examine the relationship between research variables. Due to the normality of the data based on the K-S test, an independent T-test. Results: The results showed that girls with upper extremity social physique anxiety have an eating disorder (r = 0.20, P≥0.05). On the other hand, boys with upper extremity social physique anxiety showed overeating eating behavior (r = 0.15, P≥0.05). No significant difference was observed in other components. Conclusion: According to the results of the study, girls who have high social physique anxiety are more likely to develop dietary behaviors. However, overeating eating behavior is seen in those boys who have high social physique anxiety.
This paper presents the design of a glasses system for the blind and visually impaired that incorporates various technologies to enhance their daily living experience. The glasses are equipped with a ...speaker and haptic feedback, allowing users to receive audible and tactile notifications about their surroundings. We also implemented image understanding for identifying multiple unique objects, people, and environmental obstacles. Additionally, the glasses can read signs and printed materials via text recognition technology. Finally, the glasses incorporate navigation tools, helping users to find their way in unfamiliar environments. The system has the potential to significantly improve the independence and quality of life of those with visual impairments, as it could be a valuable assistive technology tool for a wide range of applications.
Facilitating navigation in pedestrian environments is critical for enabling people who are blind and visually impaired (BVI) to achieve independent mobility. A deep reinforcement learning (DRL)–based ...assistive guiding robot with ultrawide-bandwidth (UWB) beacons that can navigate through routes with designated waypoints was designed in this study. Typically, a simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) framework is used to estimate the robot pose and navigational goal; however, SLAM frameworks are vulnerable in certain dynamic environments. The proposed navigation method is a learning approach based on state-of-the-art DRL and can effectively avoid obstacles. When used with UWB beacons, the proposed strategy is suitable for environments with dynamic pedestrians. We also designed a handle device with an audio interface that enables BVI users to interact with the guiding robot through intuitive feedback. The UWB beacons were installed with an audio interface to obtain environmental information. The on-handle and on-beacon verbal feedback provides points of interests and turn-by-turn information to BVI users. BVI users were recruited in this study to conduct navigation tasks in different scenarios. A route was designed in a simulated ward to represent daily activities. In real-world situations, SLAM-based state estimation might be affected by dynamic obstacles, and the visual-based trail may suffer from occlusions from pedestrians or other obstacles. The proposed system successfully navigated through environments with dynamic pedestrians, in which systems based on existing SLAM algorithms have failed.
Different social groups each make efforts to achieve health, and due to their social status, they also face obstacles to achieving health. Among them, blind and combination women also have unique ...experiences in They have this background. This phenomenological study analyzes the efforts of blind and partisan women in the context of their life experience and also the obstacles to their progress in Kashan. In this regard, using purposive sampling with the criterion of theoretical saturation, 25 blind and combo women were selected for in-depth interviews. The interviews were then analyzed using Brown and Clark thematic analysis. After extracting the appropriate codes, two main themes with the titles of health-centered agency and perceived barriers to health have been obtained. Health-oriented agency includes actions and actions that are in the field of awareness of individuals and occur to maintain, improve or promote health. And has the sub-themes of basic health presuppositions, conscious prevention in order to maintain health, reconstruction and treatment, and measures that are detrimental to health. Perceived health barriers also refer to macro-social categories that restrict the realization of health in blind and visually impaired women outside the will of individuals and contain sub-themes of economy-based health, harassing behaviors. Society is a disabling social context and a challenge to the institution of treatment and the passive family.
Humans, like most animals, integrate sensory input in the brain from different sensory modalities. Yet humans are distinct in their ability to grasp symbolic input, which is interpreted into a ...cognitive mental representation of the world. This representation merges with external sensory input, providing modality integration of a different sort. This study evaluates the Topo-Speech algorithm in the blind and visually impaired. The system provides spatial information about the external world by applying sensory substitution alongside symbolic representations in a manner that corresponds with the unique way our brains acquire and process information. This is done by conveying spatial information, customarily acquired through vision, through the auditory channel, in a combination of sensory (auditory) features and symbolic language (named/spoken) features. The Topo-Speech sweeps the visual scene or image and represents objects' identity by employing naming in a spoken word and simultaneously conveying the objects' location by mapping the x-axis of the visual scene or image to the time it is announced and the y-axis by mapping the location to the pitch of the voice. This proof of concept study primarily explores the practical applicability of this approach in 22 visually impaired and blind individuals. The findings showed that individuals from both populations could effectively interpret and use the algorithm after a single training session. The blind showed an accuracy of 74.45%, while the visually impaired had an average accuracy of 72.74%. These results are comparable to those of the sighted, as shown in previous research, with all participants above chance level. As such, we demonstrate practically how aspects of spatial information can be transmitted through non-visual channels. To complement the findings, we weigh in on debates concerning models of spatial knowledge (the persistent, cumulative, or convergent models) and the capacity for spatial representation in the blind. We suggest the present study's findings support the convergence model and the scenario that posits the blind are capable of some aspects of spatial representation as depicted by the algorithm comparable to those of the sighted. Finally, we present possible future developments, implementations, and use cases for the system as an aid for the blind and visually impaired.
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