One in six people have some form of visual impairment ranging from mild vision loss to total blindness. The visually impaired constantly face the danger of walking into people or hazardous objects. This project proposes the use of vibrotactile feedback to serve as an obstacle detection system for visually impaired users. We utilize a mixed reality headset with on-board depth sensors to build a digital map of the real world and a suit with an array of actuators to provide feedback as to indicate to the visually impaired the position of obstacles around them. This is demonstrated by a simple prototype built using commercially available devices (Microsoft HoloLens and bHaptics Tactot) and a qualitative user study was conducted to evaluate the viability of the proposed system. Through our user-testing performed on subjects with simulated visual impairments, our results affirm the potential of using mixed reality to detect obstacles in the environment along with only transmitting essential information through the haptic suit due to limited bandwidth.
How it works
The HoloLens is able to create a spatial mesh of the environment using its onboard depth cameras. Next, an arc-shaped collider mesh expands outwards from the headset and collides with the generated mesh of the nearest obstacle. Depending on the direction and distance of the detected obstacle, the corresponding actuators on the haptic vest will vibrate. For example, if the obstacle is detected on the left, the actuators on the left haptic vest will vibrate. Also, the frequency of the vibrations correspond to the distance of the obstacles. This system serves as an early warning system for the visually impaired user to detect obstacles without the use of a white cane.
