Aperture localization based on vibro-stimuli generated from distance variation

The purpose of this research is to verify that the proposed method, which generates vibro-stimuli according to the distance variation, has a capability of supporting depth edge detection for aperture localization. We have proposed a method to support the visually impaired understanding their surrounding environment via modality conversion from distance variation to haptic vibration information, and have developed the wearable device to provide the user with vibro-stimuli generated from visual variation inspired by optical flow characteristics. The characteristic of this vibration stimulus is that the user feels a strong vibration when the distance difference per unit time is large. It is inferred that this feature is effective in perceiving the boundary of obstacles, i.e., depth edge, which may contribute to the user's aperture localization. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed method, an aperture localization experiment was conducted to compare it with the ETAslike conventional method by changing the number of vibration motors and the method of vibration stimuli. We asked six blindfolded subjects to guess the location of the aperture. The experimental results showed that the proposed method achieved using a single motor a 98.3% correct rate. The contributions of this research are to propose the way of vibrostimuli based on distance variation for aperture localization, which is one of the important environmental elements, and to validate its effectiveness.