Vision-based navigation assistance for visually impaired individuals using general purpose mobile devices

At the present there are some systems offering pedestrian navigation, but not as many are designated for people with visual impairments. The aim of this study is to present a navigation aid which makes use of a stereoscopy video system, OpenCV library, and general purpose mobile devices. The system is based on algorithms for machine image recognition using a stereoscopy camera rig. It reconstructs the surface of the surrounding scene with high accuracy, and is thus able to provide information about potential obstacles. Our experiments show it is possible to create a real-time solution using a contemporary Android-based mobile phone and two USB cameras.