Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2017 Mar 10;17(3):565.
doi: 10.3390/s17030565.

Sensor-Based Assistive Devices for Visually-Impaired People: Current Status, Challenges, and Future Directions

Wafa Elmannai  1 , Khaled Elleithy  2
Affiliations

Sensor-Based Assistive Devices for Visually-Impaired People: Current Status, Challenges, and Future Directions

Wafa Elmannai et al. Sensors (Basel). .

Abstract

The World Health Organization (WHO) reported that there are 285 million visuallyimpaired people worldwide. Among these individuals, there are 39 million who are totally blind. There have been several systems designed to support visually-impaired people and to improve the quality of their lives. Unfortunately, most of these systems are limited in their capabilities. In this paper, we present a comparative survey of the wearable and portable assistive devices for visuallyimpaired people in order to show the progress in assistive technology for this group of people. Thus, the contribution of this literature survey is to discuss in detail the most significant devices that are presented in the literature to assist this population and highlight the improvements, advantages, disadvantages, and accuracy. Our aim is to address and present most of the issues of these systems to pave the way for other researchers to design devices that ensure safety and independent mobility to visually-impaired people.

Keywords: assistive devices; navigation and orientation systems; obstacles avoidance; obstacles detection; visually-impaired people.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Classification of electronic devices for visually-impaired people.
Figure 2
Figure 2
The Smart Cane prototype [19].
Figure 3
Figure 3
The prototype of the eye substitution device [20].
Figure 4
Figure 4
Reflection of sequence of ultrasonic pulses between the sender and receiver.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Ranges that are covered by ultra-sonic sensors [20].
Figure 6
Figure 6
An assistive device for blind people based on a map matching approach and artificial vision [22].
Figure 7
Figure 7
The result of mapping both commercial Geographical Information System (GIS) and Global Position System (GPS)’s signals is P1. P2 is the result of mapping the signals of GPS with adapting GIS [22].
Figure 8
Figure 8
(a) The design of the antenna at the front and (b) at the back; (c) fabricated antenna at the front; (d) at the back and [30].
Figure 9
Figure 9
Tongue-placed electro-tactile system with sunglasses carries object detection camera [28] (a) sunglasses with detective camera of objects; (b) tongue electro tactile device.
Figure 10
Figure 10
(a) Matrix of electrode; (b) Different eight directions for the matrix of electrodes [30].
Figure 11
Figure 11
The overall design of the system [30].
Figure 12
Figure 12
Design of the sensor module [31].
Figure 13
Figure 13
Distance of the frequency detection on sidewalk [32].
Figure 14
Figure 14
The prototype of the proposed device [34].
Figure 15
Figure 15
(a) The results of the device’s orientation in residential area; (b) The results of the device’s orientation in civilian [34].
Figure 16
Figure 16
The prototype of grip [35].
Figure 17
Figure 17
The proposed device for enhanced spatial sensitivity [35].
Figure 18
Figure 18
(a) The prototype of the device; (b) Detection process of the obstacle from 5 cm to 150 cm [38].
Figure 19
Figure 19
(a) The prototype of the proposed system; (b) calculating threshold value and the distance of the closest object [39].
Figure 20
Figure 20
Display the proposed system mounted on the special electronic wheelchair [41].
Figure 21
Figure 21
The process of detection and recognition algorithm [43].
Figure 22
Figure 22
The proposed system attached on silicon glove [45].
Figure 23
Figure 23
The prototype of Path Force Feedback belt design [46].
Figure 24
Figure 24
The detection process of force feedback belt [46].
Figure 25
Figure 25
(a) The prototype of the EyeRing; (b) The process of EyeRing device of detecting and interaction application [48].
Figure 26
Figure 26
The prototype of FingerReader [47].
Figure 27
Figure 27
The process of the extraction and detection of printed text line [47].
Figure 28
Figure 28
The proposed device [51].
Figure 29
Figure 29
The process of the extraction and expand the range detection text [51].
Figure 30
Figure 30
The implemented app [53].
Figure 31
Figure 31
The proposed application’s dataflow [53].
Figure 32
Figure 32
The proposed crutch with displayed detection ranges [54].
Figure 33
Figure 33
Replacement of three ultrasonic sensors on the cane [54].
Figure 34
Figure 34
The design of ultrasonic headset [55].
Figure 35
Figure 35
(a,b) Display the proposed ultrasonic headset with illustrating of the circuit and the solar panels [55].
Figure 36
Figure 36
The proposed system to be mounted on the head [56].
Figure 37
Figure 37
The accumulation of the interval time for forming a visual frame and the entire system is illustrated (the event distance is differentiated via colors) [56].
Figure 38
Figure 38
The prototype of the proposed system [60].
Figure 39
Figure 39
The process of the proposed navigation system [60].
Figure 40
Figure 40
The system’s installation inside a room [61].
Figure 41
Figure 41
The proposed architecture [61].
Figure 42
Figure 42
Systems’ evaluation presents the total score for each system.
Figure 43
Figure 43
Features’ overview for each system.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. World Health Organization Visual Impairment and Blindness. [(accessed on 24 January 2016)]. Available online: http://www.Awho.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs282/en/
    1. American Foundation for the Blind. [(accessed on 24 January 2016)]. Available online: http://www.afb.org/
    1. National Federation of the Blind. [(accessed on 24 January 2016)]. Available online: http://www.nfb.org/
    1. Velázquez R. Wearable and Autonomous Biomedical Devices and Systems for Smart Environment. Springer; Berlin/Heidelberg, Germany: 2010. Wearable assistive devices for the blind; pp. 331–349.
    1. Baldwin D. Wayfinding technology: A road map to the future. J. Vis. Impair. Blind. 2003;97:612–620.