PRE2018 3 Group12

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Group Members

Name Study Student ID
Harm van den Dungen Electrical Engineering 1018118
Nol Moonen Software Science 1003159
Johan van Poppel Software Science 0997566
Maarten Flippo Software Science 1006482
Jelle Zaadnoordijk Mechanical Engineering 1256238

Problem Statement

People with a visual impairment will never be able to sense the world as people without visual impairment. Thanks to guide dogs and white canes, however, these people are able to enjoy independence when it comes to navigating outside areas. Yet, these measures cannot give a representation of the world around them beyond the range of the cane or the movement of the dog. With the use of technology that might change. Using sensors these people could be given the ability to sense more than their immediate surroundings, sense objects which their white cane didn't contact or the dog ignored because it was not in the way. Also, using physical phenomena such as the Doppler effect one can also detect motion relative to you, further enhancing the image a visually impaired person can obtain of the world.

Users

The users we are designing the technology for, are the visually impaired. People with a visual disability often need aids to get through their daily life. For a blind or partially blind person, the simplest tasks can be hard to complete. While there are existing tools, such as guiding dogs and white canes, these are not always sufficient.

The most important requirement of the technology is that it offers a valid alternative to existing aids. This does not necessarily mean that the technology better support the users disability than alternatives, it could also mean that it is simply cheaper. If the product is cheaper it can still be an option for people not able to afford more costly alternatives. There are many factors classifying the value of a product. Two important factors are the production and selling costs, and the support given and the usability of the technology.

State of the Art

After doing some initial exploration, we found that the problem can be subdivided into two sub problems: how the environment can be perceived to create data, and how this data can be communicated back to the user. Now follows a short summary of existing technologies:

Mapping the environment

Many studies have been conducted on mapping an environment to electrical signals, in the context of supporting visually impaired users. This section will go over the many different technologies that these studies have used. These method can be subdivided into two categories: the technologies that scan the environment, and those who read previously planted information from the environment.

One way of reading an environment, is to provide beacons in this environment from which an agent can obtain information. In combination with a communication technology, it can be used to communicate this geographical information to a user. Such a system is called a geographic information system (GIS), and can save, store, manipulate, analyze, manage and present geographic data. [1] Examples of these communication technologies are the following:

  • Bluetooth can be used to communicate spatial information to devices, for example to a cell phone. [2]
  • Radio-frequency identification (RFID) uses electromagnetic fields to communicate data between devices. [3]
  • Global Positioning System (GPS) is a satellite based navigation system. GPS can be used to transfer navigation data to a device. However, it is quite inaccurate. [3][4]

The other method of reading an environment is to use some technology to scan the environment by measuring some statistics. Examples of these scanning technologies are the following:

  • A laser telemeter is a device that uses triangulation to measure distances to obstacles.[5]
  • (stereo) Cameras can be used in combination with computer vision techniques to observe the environment. [6][7][8][9][10][11][12]
  • Radar or ultrasound are high frequency sound waves. A device sends out these sounds and receives them when they reflect on objects. This is used to calculate the distance between sender and object. [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][4][21][22][23][24]
  • Pyroelectricity is a chemical property of materials that can be used to detect objects.[23]
  • A physical robot can be used in combination with any of the above mentioned techniques, instead of the device directly interacting with the environment. [25]

Communicating to the user

Given we are dealing with the visually impaired, we cannot convey the gathered information through a display. The most common alternatives are using haptic feedback or audio cues, either spoken or generic tones.

Cassinelli et al. have shown that haptic feedback is an intuitive means to convey spatial information to the visually impaired [24]. Their experiments detail how untrained individuals were able to dodge oncoming objects from behind reliably. This is of great use as it shows haptic feedback is a very good option of encoding spatial information.

Another way to encode spatial information is through audio transmissions, most commonly through an earbud for the wearer. An example of such a system was created by Farcy et al. [5]. By having different notes corresponding to distance ranges this information can be clearly relayed. Farcy et al. make use of a handheld device, which caused a problem for them. It required a lot of cognitive work to merge the audio cues with where the user pointed the device. This made the sonorous interface difficult to use so-long as the information processing is not intuitive. In this project the aim is to have a wearable system, which could mean this problem is not of significance.

Finally, regardless of how distance is encoded for the user to interpret, it is vital the user does not experience information overload. According to Van Erp et al. [26] users are easily overwhelmed with information.

State of the Art conclusion

From our State of the Art literary study, we conclude that a wide variety of technologies have been used to develop an even wider variety of devices to aid visually impaired people. However, we noticed relatively little papers focus on what is most important: the user. Many papers pick a technology and develop a product using that technology. This in and of itself is impressive, but too often there is little focus on what this technology can do for the user. Only afterwards a short experiment is conducted on whether or not it is even remotely usable by the user. Even worse, in most cases, not even visually impaired users are the ones that test the final product. The product is tested with blind-folded sighted people, but differences exist that a blindfold cannot simulate. Research has shown that the brains of blind people and sighted people are physically different[27], which could lead to them responding differently to the feedback that the product provides. The fact that the user is not involved in the early stage of decision making, leads to the fact that the final product is not suited for the problem. When the problem is fully understood by involving the actual users, a product can be developed solving the problem.

Approach

To follow our State of the Art conclusion, our goal is to design a system to aid blind people that is tampered to the needs of this user from the ground up. That is why we aim to involve the user from the start of the project. Firstly, we are first going to conduct a questionnaire-based research to fully understand our user. Only after understanding the user, we will start to gather requirements to make a preliminary design that fills the needs of thse users. After the preliminary design is finished, building the prototype can be started. During the making of the design and building the prototype, it is probable that some things might not go as planned and it will be necessary to go back steps, to make an improvement on the design in the end. When the prototype is finished, it is tweaked to perform as optimal as possible using several tests. We also aim to actually test the final prototype with visually impaired people. Finally, everything will be documented in the wiki.

Deliverables and Milestones

A prototype that aids blind people roaming around areas, that are unknown to them. This prototype is based on the design of last year[28]. From this design, a new design was made that tries to improve on the issues the previous design faced. Additionally, a wiki will be made that helps with giving additional information about the protoype, such as costs, components and it provides some backstory of the subject. Finally, a presentation is made regarding the final design and prototype.

  • Presentation
    • Presentation represents all aspects of the project
  • Design
    • Preliminary design
    • Final design based on preliminary design, with possible alterations due to feedback from building the prototype
  • Prototype
    • Finish building the prototype regarding the final design
    • Prototype is fully debugged and all components work as intended
    • Prototype follows requirements
      • Must haves are implemented
      • Should haves are implemented
      • Could haves are implemented
  • Wiki
    • Find at least 25 relative state-of-the-art papers
    • Wiki page is finished containing all aspects of the project

Planning

Week Day Date Activity Content Comments
Week 1 Thursday 07-02 Meeting First meeting, no content
Week 1 Sunday 10-02 Deadline Finding and summarizing 7 papers
Week 2 Monday 11-02 Meeting Creating SotA from researched papers
Week 2 Tuesday 12-02 Deadline Planning, users, SotA, logbook, approach, problem statement, milestones, deliverables Edited in wiki 18 hours before next panel
Week 2 Thursday 14-02 Panel
Week 2 Sunday 17-02 Deadline Prioritized and reviewed requirements document
Week 3 Monday 28-02 Meeting Discussing previous deadline (requirements)
Week 3 Thursday 21-02 Panel
Week 3 Sunday 24-02 Deadline Preliminary design
Week 4 Monday 25-02 Meeting Discussing previous deadline (preliminary design)
Week 4 Thursday 28-02 Panel Maarten not present at panel
Vacation Sunday 10-03 Deadline Final design Final design is based on preliminary design
Week 5 Monday 11-03 Meeting Discussing previous deadline (final design)
Week 5 Thursday 14-03 Panel
Week 6 Monday 18-03 Meeting Discussing deadline progress (prototype)
Week 6 Thursday 21-02 Panel
Week 6 Sunday 24-03 Deadline Prototype complete
Week 7 Monday 25-03 Meeting Discussing previous deadline (prototype)
Week 7 Thursday 27-03 Panel
Week 7 Sunday 31-03 Deadline Conclusion, discussion, presentation
Week 8 Monday 01-04 Meeting Discussing what is left
Week 8 Thursday 04-04 Final presentation

Simulation of the sensors

One of the goals for this project is to come up with a solution for the limited field of view of the prototype from last year's group. In order to do that, a proposed solution is to have the sensors rotate, enlarging their field of view. Since we want to minimize the amount of rotation whilst maximizing objects detected, we created a simulation in order to test multiple configurations.

References

  1. ↑ Faria, J., Lopes, S., Fernandes, H., Martins, P., & Barroso, J. (2010). Electronic white cane for blind people navigation assistance. World Automation Congress (WAC), 2010, 1–7. Retrieved from https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/5665289/citations#citations
  2. ↑ Bohonos, S., Lee, A., Malik, A., Thai, C., & Manduchi, R. (2007). Universal real-time navigational assistance (URNA). In Proceedings of the 1st ACM SIGMOBILE international workshop on Systems and networking support for healthcare and assisted living environments - HealthNet '07
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Fernandes, H., Costa, P., Filipe, V., & Hadjileontiadis, L. (2010). STEREO VISION IN BLIND NAVIGATION ASSISTANCE. 2010 World Automation Congress. Retrieved from https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/5665579
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Ghate, A. A., & Chavan, V. G. (2017). SMART GLOVES FOR BLIND. IRJET, 12(04), 1025–1028. Retrieved from https://www.irjet.net/volume4-issue12
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Farcy, R. Bellik, Y. (2002). Locomotion Assistance for the Blind. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4471-3719-1_27
  6. ↑ Dunai, L., Fajarnes, G. P., Praderas, V. S., Garcia, B. D., & Lengua, I. L. (2010). Real-time assistance prototype- A new navigation aid for blind people. In IECON Proceedings (Industrial Electronics Conference) (pp. 1173–1178). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/IECON.2010.5675535
  7. ↑ Truelliet, S., & Royer, E. (2010). OUTDOOR/INDOOR VISION-BASED LOCALIZATION FOR BLIND PEDESTRIAN NAVIGATION ASSISTANCE. International Journal of Image and Graphics, 10(04), 481–496. https://doi.org/10.1142/S0219467810003937
  8. ↑ L. Dunai, G. P. Fajarnes, V. S. Praderas, B. D. Garcia and I. L. Lengua, "Real-time assistance prototype — A new navigation aid for blind people," IECON 2010 - 36th Annual Conference on IEEE Industrial Electronics Society, Glendale, AZ, 2010, pp. 1173-1178. http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=5675535&isnumber=5674827
  9. ↑ Schwarze, T. Lauer, M, Schwaab, M. Romanovas, M. Böhm, S. Jürgensohn, T. (2015). A camera-based mobility aid for visually impaired people. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13218-015-0407-7
  10. ↑ Wang, H. Katzschmann, R. Teng, S. Araki, B. Giarré, L. Rus, D. (2017). Enabling independent navigation for visually impaired people through a wearable vision-based feedback system. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/7989772
  11. ↑ Yi, C., Flores, R. W., Chincha, R., & Tian, Y. (2013). Finding objects for assisting blind people. Network Modeling Analysis in Health Informatics and Bioinformatics, 2(2), 71–79. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13721-013-0026-x
  12. ↑ Zeb, A., Ullah, S., & Rabbi, I. (2014). Indoor vision-based auditory assistance for blind people in semi controlled environments. In 2014 4th International Conference on Image Processing Theory, Tools and Applications (IPTA) (pp. 1–6). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/IPTA.2014.7001996
  13. ↑ A wearable assistive device for the visually impaired. (n.d.). Retrieved February 11, 2019, from http://www.guidesense.com/en/
  14. ↑ Pereira, A., Nunes, N., Vieira, D., Costa, N., Fernandes, H. & Barroso, J. (2015). Blind Guide: An ultrasound sensor-based body area network for guiding blind people. Procedia Computer Science, 67, 403–408. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procs.2015.09.285
  15. ↑ Al-Mosawi, Ali. (2012). Using ultrasonic sensor for blind and deaf persons combines voice alert and vibration properties. Research Journal of Recent Sciences. 1. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/235769070_Using_ultrasonic_sensor_for_blind_and_deaf_persons_combines_voice_alert_and_vibration_properties
  16. ↑ T. Ifukube, T. Sasaki and C. Peng, "A blind mobility aid modeled after echolocation of bats," in IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, vol. 38, no. 5, pp. 461-465, May 1991. http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=81565&isnumber=2674
  17. ↑ Bousbia-Salah, M., Bettayeb, M. & Larbi, A. J Intell Robot Syst (2011) 64: 387. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10846-011-9555-7
  18. ↑ Bousbia-Salah M., Fezari M. (2007) A Navigation Tool for Blind People. In: Sobh T. (eds) Innovations and Advanced Techniques in Computer and Information Sciences and Engineering. Springer, Dordrecht. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-1-4020-6268-1_59
  19. ↑ P. Mihajlik, M. Guttermuth, K. Seres and P. Tatai, "DSP-based ultrasonic navigation aid for the blind," IMTC 2001. Proceedings of the 18th IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Technology Conference. Rediscovering Measurement in the Age of Informatics (Cat. No.01CH 37188), Budapest, 2001, pp. 1535-1540 vol.3. http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=929462&isnumber=20096
  20. ↑ Pereira, A., Nunes, N., Vieira, D., Costa, N., Fernandes, H. & Barroso, J. (2015). Blind Guide: An ultrasound sensor-based body area network for guiding blind people. Procedia Computer Science, 67, 403–408. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procs.2015.09.285
  21. ↑ Bujacz, M., & Strumiłło, P. (2016). Sonification: Review of Auditory Display Solutions in Electronic Travel Aids for the Blind. Archives of Acoustics, 41(3), 401–414. https://doi.org/10.1515/aoa-2016-0040
  22. ↑ Mehta, U. Alim, M. Kumar, S. (2017). Smart path guidance mobile aid for visually disabled persons. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877050917302089
  23. ↑ 23.0 23.1 Ram, S. Sharf, J. (2002). The people sensor: a mobility aid for the visually impaired. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/729548
  24. ↑ 24.0 24.1 Cassinelli, A. Reynolds, C. Ishikawa, M. (2006). Augmenting spatial awareness with Haptic Radar. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/4067727
  25. ↑ Lacey, G. Dawson-Howe K. (1998). The application of robotics to a mobility aid for the elderly blind. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921889098000116
  26. ↑ Van Erp, J. Kroon, L. Mioch, T. Paul, K. (2017), Obstacle Detection Display for Visually Impaired: Coding of Direction, Distance, and Height on a Vibrotactile Waist Band. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fict.2017.00023/full
  27. ↑ Park, H.-J., Lee, J. D., Kim, E. Y., Park, B., Oh, M.-K., Lee, S., & Kim, J.-J. (2009). Morphological alterations in the congenital blind based on the analysis of cortical thickness and surface area. NeuroImage, 47(1), 98–106. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2009.03.076
  28. ↑ Boekhorst, B, te. Kruithof, E. Cloudt, Stefan. Cloudt, Eline. Kamperman, T. (2017). Robots Everywhere PRE2017 3 Groep13. http://cstwiki.wtb.tue.nl/index.php?title=PRE2017_3_Groep13
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