Arm navigation assisting for the visually impaired

We propose an arm-navigation assisting system for a visually impaired person to reach an object on the table by indicating simultaneously ldquoclock positionrdquo of the object and the velocity of the clutching arm(hand) by the pitch of the signal sound. To assist real-time navigation we have adopted optical tracking of marks attached both on the hand and objects instead of scene analysis. The velocity of the hand is decided by a fuzzy control rule depending on the current velocity of the hand and the distance between the hand and the target. Crucial point of assisting is to let him create a cognitive map of the workspace. So we have tried to supply spacial information of the workplace which is obtained by the distance field model (DFM) representation of the workspace.