EchoVest: Real-Time Sound Classification and Depth Perception Expressed through Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation

Our team developed EchoVest, an assistive device that addresses the needs of over 1.5 billion people worldwide with hearing impairments. EchoVest increases environmental awareness using transcutaneous electric nerve stimulation (TENS). Equipped with features like sound localization, soundclassification, noise reduction, and depth perception, EchoVest surpasses CNN-based models in accuracy and computational costs. Utilizing an innovative audio pipeline, Otsu's Method for optimal noise filtering, complex Time Difference of Arrival algorithms for accurate depth and direction, and blind source separation for multiple microphone inputs, EchoVest achieved 95.7% accuracy in environmental sound classification on the ESC-50 dataset.