• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
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• 2019.05a
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• pp.49-52
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• 2019

Braille guide block of sidewalk is an essential facility for independent walking of the blind. The blind walks while checking the braile guide blocks with white cane and sense of sole. When they leave the braile area, they face difficulties until they find the braile guide blocks again. In this paper, we propose an algorithm that guides the walking of the blind by determining whether they follows the braille guide blocks safely. For this purpose, the slope of the braille block is selected as a feature and a 3-line detector is introduced. Also the slopes are stabilized using spatial filtering to deal with breaks or junctions of the braille block during the progress and temporal filtering to cope with ego-motion of the blind. Through simulations using a dataset obtained from the real sidewalks and indoors, it can be shown that the proposed algorithm can successfully estimate the walking direction and determine whether the blind is out of the braille guide block area.

• Journal of The Korea Institute of Healthcare Architecture
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.19-30
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• 2020

Purpose: The ratio of the visually impaired is gradually increasing due to various causes such as natural aging, accidents, and environmental changes. Therefore, this study has two folds. Firstly, it aims to analyze the current satisfaction level with information facilities for the visually impaired. Secondly, it aims to examine the factors affecting the satisfaction with indoor information facilities. Through this study, it helps to identify problems of information facilities for the visually impaired and it works as a practical data for further improvements. Methods: For 50 visually impaired people, a telephone survey was conducted on the satisfaction with the braille blocks, braille signboards, braille information boards with tactile map, audio guide devices, and safety egress devices. Microsoft Excel and SPSS 26.0 were used for the analysis. Results: It was confirmed that the overall satisfaction with the indoor information facilities was very low. The more the visually impaired people recognized the installation standards, and the better the maintenance was, the higher the satisfaction. In the case of braille blocks and braille signboards, the effect of information transfer on satisfaction was relatively high. In the case of audio guide device and safety egress device, the standard suitability influenced satisfaction. Implications: The low level of satisfaction with the overall information facilities can impede visually impaired people from receiving practical help through the information facilities. Factors influencing the satisfaction level of each facility were identified, which makes it possible to prepare effective improvement measures.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.16 no.8
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• pp.202-208
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• 2016

The scope of activities of the visually impaired is increasing. But they are not easy to visit the destination safely because the building was complicated and larger than ever. There is a guide system for visually impaired such as GPS and Audio alerts, Braille guide block, Acoustic signaller, etc. But they are not suitable for indoor because most of them are the outdoor guide system. Therefore, in this paper, I propose a system that provides guidance information to the visually impaired using Voice Technology, TTS (Text to Speech) and Haptic Technology, Beacon based on the wireless sensor networks. It informed the visually impaired of guidance information about destination such as distance, height, and obstacle to the destination using the generalized smart phone. The user could be received guide info about searches for the optimal route to the destination using the TTS technology and Haptic technology in test result of the proposed system.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
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• 2019.05a
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• pp.45-48
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• 2019

Detection of crosswalk is an important issue for the blind to walk without the help of others. There is a braille block on the sidewalk, which helps the blind to walk. On the other hand, crosswalk is more dangerous due to the moving vehicles. However, there is no appropriate means to induce the blind. In this paper, we propose a method to detect crosswalk in front of a blind and estimate its direction using an image sensor. We adopt multi-ROIs and make their binary versions. In order to determine whether it is a crosswalk, two features are extracted; one is the number of crossing in the binary image and the other is the ratio of white area. We can also estimate the direction of the crosswalk through the slope of the projection data. We evaluated the performance using experimental dataset and the proposed algorithm showed 80% accuracy of detection.