Role of object identification in sonification system for visually impaired

Abstract

The role of object identification in a sonification system for navigation assistance to the visually impaired (NAVI) is discussed. The developed system includes a single board processing system (SBPS), vision sensor mounted on headgear and stereo earphones. The vision sensor captures the vision information in front of the blind user. The captured image is processed to identify the object in the image. Object identification is achieved by a real time image processing methodology using fuzzy algorithms. The processed image is mapped onto stereo acoustic patterns and transferred to the stereo earphones in the system. Blind individuals were trained with NAVI system and tested for obstacle identification. Suggestions from the blind volunteers regarding the pleasantness and discrimination of the sound pattern were incorporated in the prototype. With object identification, the discrimination of object and background by sound is found to be easier compared to sound produced from the unprocessed image.