A Smart Clothing Approach for Augmenting Mobility of Visually Impaired People

As per World Health Organization (WHO), a total of around 2.2 billion of human population in the world has visual problem to severe or minor extent. In this paper, an assistive system is proposed to augment the mobility of such visually impaired people. This system is realized by using a smart clothing approach for wearable convenience of the subject. In this system, five ultrasonic sensors, a web camera and a global positioning receiver (GPS) are integrated on a wearable jacket. This multisensory arrangement is proposed in order to translate human navigation ability into an electronic system. It employs machine learning for reliable detection of obstacles and navigation path. Proposed system also assists in knowing information about current or nearby location, planning a journey from a reference location to a desired destination, and tracking the navigation path to reach the destination. The functional features of this system are resolved based on continual interactions with the visually impaired subjects, their care takers and rehabilitation professionals. The said system was subjected to usability evaluations with ten totally visually impaired subjects. Results of this study showed encouraging improvement in mobility performances of subjects as compared to a white cane alone. Amongst the participated subjects, 80% acknowledged usefulness of the proposed system for attending their mobility needs. Total 60% subjects admitted decrease in cognitive efforts, and 80% acknowledged reduction in perceptual efforts due of this system.