Device for visual kinesthetic navigation of the blind and visually impaired

Abstract

We introduce a novel device for visual-kinesthetic navigation of the blind and visually impaired, which comprises two main parts, the glasses and the belt. The wearable glasses detect the obstacles in the user’s field of view, then pack that information and transmit it via Bluetooth to the belt, which is attached to the abdominal area. The belt translates the received information into a two-dimensional vibration pattern of ten vibration motors. The device was tested on thirteen visually intact young subjects walking through a custom-made polygon on three different days. The results demonstrated that the device supports efficient and intuitive detection of various obstacles.