Applied Image Processing and Systems for Welfare. Development of the Robotic Travel Aid for the Visually Impaired.

Abstract

The Robotic Travel Aid (RoTA) is a motorized wheelchair equipped with vision, sonar, and tactile sensors, as well as a map database system. The visually impaired can get mobility, orientation, and obstacle information from the RoTA, and they can inquire about their present location, landmarks, and future parts of their route. The RoTA can help the visually impaired avoid vehicles along a road with lane marks or along a sidewalk marked with braille. In this paper, we propose the locomotion strategy of our robot, which is based on “sign-pattern-based stereotyped action.” This paper describes 1) danger estimation, 2) pedestrian detection, and 3) the map system for the RoTA. Experimental results showed the effectiveness of our proposed method. Furthermore, a psychologist wearing an eye-mask evaluated a RoTA (not the vision-based type but the sonar-based type), and the experimental results showed the RoTA to be a very valuable aid to the visually impaired.