Cognitive guidance system for the blind

The main categories that protrude from assistive devices for the blind persons are: Electronic travel aids (ETAs), electronic orientation aids (EOAs), and position locator devices (PLDs). This work comes in the category (ETAs). In this paper, we present an addition to the long cane indoors through a noninvasive device that will be able to help in navigation to blind people and visually impaired. The system uses stereoscopic vision and the sensor Kinect to infer about the distances of objects relative to cameras and the search of obstacle planes in the scene. This will be done using stereo vision, vanishing point and fuzzy rules. The vanishing point will help us in structured spaces to have a main direction. Since the guidance system anchors to a spatial reference system, the vanishing point is used like a virtual compass which helps the blind to orient himself towards a goal. Reinforced with fuzzy decision rules, the system gives support to the blind to avoid obstacles, thus the blind is able to cross structured spaces avoiding obstacles and without the need of a cane since this is little practical in interiors.