Safe and Sound Mobile Application: A solution for aid people with visual disabilities' mobility

In this study, the development of a mobile application, for people with visual disabilities, is presented. The solution allows assistance to easily walk outside and be warned from the obstacles that could appear. Specifically, the application alerts, with audio stimulus, the user for the incoming dangerous objects by identifying them at a certain distance, in real time, via the phone camera. It can be used with voice commands and/or manually, in two different ways. In addition, location information of frequently visited places can be saved, at any time, and the user can use the app's audible navigation service for his/her next visit. Also, this application can be used only with the mobile phone, without any additional hardware device. It was developed to be used on both IOS and Android platforms. A preliminary usability assessment has been made and the overall results appeared positive as it was showed 86% successful rate in user interaction. In future work, we will introduce improvements within the voice command system, also in the synchronization of the camera and navigation service, and provide an advanced model training to object detection.