Abstract
In recent years, the number of visually impaired people has been increasing, and supporting the movement of visually impaired people will be indispensable for the future society. At present, for visually impaired people, a general-purpose walking support is a combination of a braille block and a white cane; however, it is not enough. In this research, we provide a system that expands the above combination by utilizing the technologies of a see-through head-mounted display (HMD) and Augmented Reality/Mixed Reality (AR/MR). Specifically, utilizing the features of AR/MR, a virtual 3D object is projected as a braille block (virtual braille block) on the walking surface of visually impaired people via an HMD. Subsequently, when the white cane waved by visually impaired people and the virtual braille block intersect (collision), the guidance of forwarding, left, right, and turn is returned as feedback by voice and vibration. By realizing these, the goal is to provide a system that enables visually impaired people to move freely in the walking space.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
. References
World Health Organization: Universal eye health: a global action plan 2014–2019 (2013)
Bourne, R.R.A., Flaxman, S.R., Braithwaite, T., et al.: Magnitude, temporal trends and projections of the global prevalence of blindness and distance and near vision impairment a systematic review and meta-analysis. Lancet Glob. Health 5, e888–e897 (2017)
World Health Organization: Blindness and vision impairment. https://www.who.int/en/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/blindness-and-visual-impairment. Accessed 9 Jan 2020
Bai, J., Liu, D., Su, G., et al.: A cloud and vision-based navigation system used for blind people. In: Proceedings of the International Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Automation and Control Technologies, Wuhan, China, 7–9 April 2017, pp. 1–6 (2017)
Guerreiro, J., Ahmetovic, D., Sato, D., et al.: Airport accessibility and navigation assistance for people with visual impairments. In: Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Glasgow, Scotland, UK, 4–9 May 2019, Paper No. 16 (2019)
Kayukawa, S., Higuchi, K., Guerreiro, J., et al.: BBeep: a sonic collision avoidance system for blind travellers and nearby pedestrians. In: Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Glasgow, Scotland, UK, 4–9 May 2019, Paper No. 52 (2019)
Japan Federation of the Blind: About Braille Block. http://nichimou.org/impaired-vision/barrier-free/induction-block/. (published in Japanese). Accessed 9 Jan 2020
Traffic Safety Research Center: What is a Braille Block? http://www.tsrc.or.jp/. (published in Japanese). Accessed 9 Jan 2020
Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications: The Road Traffic Law in Japan. https://elaws.e-gov.go.jp/search/elawsSearch/elaws_search/lsg0500/detail?lawId=335AC0000000105. (published in Japanese). Accessed 9 Jan 2020
Tokuda, K., Mizuno, T.: Braille Blocks - From Japan for Visually Impaired People to Safely Walk the World. Fukumura Shuppan Inc. (2011). (published in Japanese)
Mizuno, T., Tokuda, K., Nishidate, A., et al.: Installation errors and corrections in tactile ground surface indicators in Europe, America, Oceania and Asia. IATSS Res. 32(2), 68–80 (2008)
The Asahi Shimbun Company: Developed easy-to-read Braille Blocks, 17 Colors. https://www.asahi.com/articles/ASKDQ4JF5KDQULBJ00W.html. (published in Japanese). Accessed 9 Jan 2020
Hommaru, K., Tanaka, J.: Walking support for visually impaired using virtual braille block. In: Forum on Information Technology 2019, J-020, Fascicle3, pp. 277–278 (2019)
Colenbrander, A.: Visual standards aspects and ranges of vision loss with emphasis on population surveys. In: International Council of Ophthalmology at the 29th International Congress of Ophthalmology, Sydney, Australia, April 2002 (2002)
Zhao, Y., Kupferstein, Y., et al.: Designing AR visualizations to facilitate stair navigation for people with low vision. In: UIST 2019, New Orleans, LA, USA, pp. 387–402 (2019)
HoloLens | Documentation. https://docs.microsoft.com/ja-jp/hololens/. Accessed Jan 9 2020
Watanabe, T., Yamaguchi, T., et al.: Survey of mobile phone usage by blind people 2017. The Telecommunications Advancement Foundation Research Report No. 29 (2014). (published in Japanese)
Watanabe, T., Kaga, H., et al.: Survey on smartphone and tablet usage by blind people 2017. IEICE technical report, WIT2017-42, vol. 117, no. 251, pp. 69–74, October 2017. (published in Japanese)
Getting Started with MRTK | Mixed Reality Toolkit Documentation. https://microsoft.github.io/MixedRealityToolkit-Unity/Documentation/GettingStartedWithTheMRTK.html. Accessed Jan 9 2020
Unity | Documentation. https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/index.html. Accessed Jan 9 2020
Microsoft Azure | Custom Vision. https://docs.microsoft.com/ja-jp/azure/cognitive-services/custom-vision-service/. Accessed Jan 9 2020
Kobe Eyelight Association. https://eyelight.eek.jp/. Accessed Jan 9 2020
Okayama Prefectural University: Secret of Road Crossing Zone (Escort Zone) for Visually Impaired Guidance. http://tans.fhw.oka-pu.ac.jp/topics/topic002.htm. (published in Japanese). Accessed 9 Jan 2020
Sandnes, F.E., Eika, E.: Head-mounted augmented reality displays on the cheap: a DIY approach to sketching and prototyping low-vision assistive technologies. In: Antona, M., Stephanidis, C. (eds.) UAHCI 2017. LNCS, vol. 10278, pp. 167–186. Springer, Cham (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-58703-5_13
Acknowledgments
The authors deeply thank IPLAB members, Kazunari Mori, Ken Fujioka, Shohei Fujii, and Nayon Cho, for their valuable advice and cooperation.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Hommaru, K., Tanaka, J. (2020). Walking Support for Visually Impaired Using AR/MR and Virtual Braille Block. In: Antona, M., Stephanidis, C. (eds) Universal Access in Human-Computer Interaction. Design Approaches and Supporting Technologies. HCII 2020. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 12188. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49282-3_24
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49282-3_24
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-49281-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-49282-3
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)