Visual Augmentation Glasses for People with Impaired Vision

This paper presents the preliminary design and development of a set visual augmentation glasses with the potential to assist people with varying degrees of loss of vision. The wearable spectacles are intended to be non-obstructive, and therefore employs a Transparent OLED display providing 360o viewing angles and creating an assistive overlay rather than the simulated view of a Virtual Reality (VR) device. Several aspects regarding the software have been achieved, including a functional operating system running on an embedded device, the Jetson TK1, face detection and eye tracking and hand-gesture recognition and control. Preliminary hardware design for the glasses has also been developed. The results of the testes have been promising, with considerable challenges remaining in the development of the visual perception aspects of the proposed visual aid.