• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Intelligent Systems Conference
• /
• 2003.09a
• /
• pp.531-534
• /
• 2003

In this paper, the Intelligent Space (iSpace) concept is applied for helping disabled or blind persons in crowded environments such as train stations, or airports. The main contribution of this paper is a general mathematical (fuzzy-neuro) description of obstacle avoidance method (walking habit) of moving objects (human beings) in a limited area scanned by the iSpace. A mobile robot with extended functions is introduced as a Mobile Assistant Robot which is assisted by the iSpace. The Mobile Assistant Robot (MAR) can guide and protect a blind person in a crowded environment with the help of the Intelligent Space. The prototype of the Mobile Assistant Robot and simulations of some basic types of obstacle avoidance method (walking habit) are presented.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Computer Information Conference
• /
• 2018.07a
• /
• pp.137-138
• /
• 2018

시각장애인은 활동을 하는데 있어 많은 제약이 따른다. 특히 사물을 만지거나 음성을 이용하여 정보를 얻어 이동해야 하는 어려움을 겪는다. 공공기관 및 민간기업에서는 시각장애인의 어려움을 해결하기 위하여 다양한 지원방안을 내놓고 있지만 여전히 미흡한 것이 현실이다. 이 중 시각장애인이 사용하고자 하는 기기에 설치된 점자판에 접근하는데는 특히나 많은 어려움이 발생한다. 본 논문에서는 이러한 시각장애인 및 저시력자들이 효과적으로 점자판에 접근할 수 있는 시스템을 제안한다. 제안시스템은 블루투스를 이용하여 음성으로 시각장애인들이 이용하려는 시설 및 기기 등에 쉽게 접근할 수 있도록 도와줌으로써, 사회적 약자의 어려움을 해소하는데 많은 도움을 줄 수 있을 것으로 판단된다.

• Proceedings of the Korea Inteligent Information System Society Conference
• /
• 2007.11a
• /
• pp.545-549
• /
• 2007

시각 장애인의 보행 보조 장치는 보통 "흰 지팡이"라고 부르며, 이는 이동권 보장을 위한 최소한의 보조 장치이다. 본 논문에서는 시각 장애인에게 주변의 장애물 인식과 현재위치를 알려주어 보행에 도움을 줄 수 있는 장치의 설계 및 제작에 과하여 기술한다. 전체 시스템은 크게 두 부분으로 구성된다. 하는 주변의 장애물 인식을 위한 PSD 센서와 GPS 수신기, Bluetooth 모듈이 내장되어 있는 지팡이 부분이고, 다른 하나는 지팡이 부분에서 획득된 정보의 처리 및 장애인에게 여러 가지 정보 제공을 목적으로 하는 휴대장치이다. 이러한 장치를 통해 시각 장애인의 이동권 확보와 사회 활동권 등 복지 증진에 도움을 주고자 한다.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Library and Information Science
• /
• v.42 no.4
• /
• pp.73-94
• /
• 2008

There are more than 2 million blind and partially disabled people in Korea. They need access to books and information for all the same reasons as non-disabled persons: for lifelong learning, for social activity, for leisure, and to play a full part in society. In considering these realities, this paper has suggested the various strategies and plans to build and operate a cooperative library service network for the disabled persons. In addition, author commented on the subsequent actions for implementing the cooperative service model.

• Korean Parent-Child Health Journal
• /
• v.18 no.2
• /
• pp.47-57
• /
• 2015

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to discover the nature from the life experience of a person with unilateral acquired blindness and his/her family after losing the eyesight and adapting in the environment and to find the meaning of life and how to solve the problem in psychosocial aspect. Methods: This study uses one of the qualitative research methods which explains how families with the unilateral acquired blind perceive blindness after experiencing it and observes how they signify it. starts with interest in lifestyles of individuals and their families and tries to understand the subjective existences of participants in accessible ways and draw the experiences after becoming one-side blind. It cyclically uses deductive verification process through inductive method and establishing hypothesis using materials. Results: According to the results of this study, unilateral acquired blindness studies, due to shattered life, they did not know what to do. Also, discomfort from struggling in a big tunnel and even will to live were found. trying to go out to the world, seeing the new world, and trying to encourage myself, strong attachment to life was shown to by saying, appeared. Each includes sub-topics such as feeling abandoned after confirmed the blindness, feeling disappointed to doctors, family, and friends, trying to live with hope, struggling in a tunnel with thinking how to live, closing the mind from the world, seeing outside the world in the midst of struggling, trying to forget the past with the will of life, having hope to live with care of family, and trying to keep the rest vision. Conclusion: Firstly, in nursing aspect for their adaptation, programs for disable people and nursing intervention focused on their families should be developed. Secondly, since it can be economic and psychological burden for their families and acquaintances, it is necessary to support the blind so that they can find fitted rehabilitation programs and come back to society. Thirdly, active participation of health care providers may influence social interest the improvement of national welfare policy for the unilateral acquired blind.

• Journal of Korean Library and Information Science Society
• /
• v.51 no.3
• /
• pp.1-25
• /
• 2020

The World Health Organization estimated that more than a billion people (or 15% of the world's population) lives with disabilities. They have the same information needs as non-disabled people. Nevertheless, as the World Blind Union estimated, less than 10% of published books are ever made into accessible formats in developed countries. The role of the national library should be very important to improve the information accessibility for the disabled. Based on this perspective, this study analyzed and compared the history and development, legal basis and organization, main functions and tasks, and service features for the disabled for the Library of Congress of the United States, MTM(Myndigheten för Tillgängliga Medier) of Sweden, National Diet Library of Japan, and SALB (South African Library for the Blind) of Republic of South Africa representing the nationwide disability services by continent. And based on the results of the analysis, this study suggested ways to strengthen the capacity of the National Library for the Disabled of Korea.

• Journal of the Korean Society for information Management
• /
• v.27 no.3
• /
• pp.147-168
• /
• 2010

The purpose of this study is to present suggestions for Korean libraries for disabled person after collecting and analyzing qualitative data upon library policies of national libraries, public libraries and libraries for disabled person in European countries including Sweden, UK and France. Korean national library support center for the disabled should be independent in order to have consistent policy and ability for its execution. It should also support private libraries for the disabled in inheriting professionalism and accumulated history. Developing alternative material, integrated catalogue and professional service is required by cooperative and systematic arrangements among national and public libraries for disabled person including schools and university libraries. Also, it should be able to grow not only on the basis of internal cooperation among libraries but also with the help of external organizations like social and legal systems, organizations related with the disabled and regional self governing bodies.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
• /
• v.19 no.11
• /
• pp.167-173
• /
• 2014

A white cane is used by many people who are blind or visually impaired. The studies and developments in the field of smart electronic white cane have been progressed to improve walking safety of the visually handicapped person. In this paper, we describe a situation-awareness white cane which support and guide walking of the visually handicapped person by giving information of surrounding situation through connection of a white cane and a mobile device. There are easily accessible buttons in the situation-awareness white cane. These buttons is connected with the mobile device by blue-tooth, so by pushing these buttons, the visually handicapped person can receive sound-guidance. As a result, the visually handicapped person can walk more safely by getting more information of situation.

• International Journal of Computer Science & Network Security
• /
• v.23 no.4
• /
• pp.48-54
• /
• 2023

Nowadays, a blind man finds it very difficult to cross the roads. They should be very vigilant with every step they take. To resolve this problem, Convolutional Neural Networks(CNN) is a best method to analyse the data and automate the model without intervention of human being. In this work, a traffic signal recognition system is designed using CNN for the visually impaired. To provide a safe walking environment, a voice message is given according to light state and timer state at that instance. The developed model consists of two phases, in the first phase the CNN model is trained to classify different images captured from traffic signals. Common Objects in Context (COCO) labelled dataset is used, which includes images of different classes like traffic lights, bicycles, cars etc. The traffic light object will be detected using this labelled dataset with help of object detection model. The CNN model detects the color of the traffic light and timer displayed on the traffic image. In the second phase, from the detected color of the light and timer value a text message is generated and sent to the text-to-speech conversion model to make voice guidance for the blind person. The developed traffic light recognition model recognizes traffic light color and countdown timer displayed on the signal for safe signal crossing. The countdown timer displayed on the signal was not considered in existing models which is very useful. The proposed model has given accurate results in different scenarios when compared to other models.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
• /
• v.54
• /
• pp.149-176
• /
• 2003

The purpose of this study is to examine the degree of community integration of visually impaired people who have the limitation of mobility in comparison with another disabled and to find factors affecting community integration. The data were obtained through telephone interview with visually impaired people. The final sample was consisted of 1,004 respondents. The data were analyzed using statistical techniques such as crosstabulation, t-test, and hierarchical regression. In this study, the factors affecting community integration was divided into four dimensions : the attribution to disability, physical functioning, psychology and social support system. The major findings of this study were as follows: First, the factors affecting community integration of visually impaired people were age, education, economic status, social support, information support and participation of rehabilitation service. Second, the factors affecting community integration of the low vision and the blind are the limitation of daily activities and social support. But the factors affecting community integration of the blind are participation of education for braille and that of the low vision are information support and participation of rehabilitation service. Finally, the person losing eyesight since school age were the more limitation of daily activities than the person losing eyesight in babyhood. The factors affect community integration of the former are social support, information support, participation of education for braille, and rehabilitation service. The current findings suggest that intervention and policy aimed at improving social support system and formal services such as education, rehabilitation services should be considered by rehabilitation professionals and policy makers.