The path force feedback belt

In an ideal world, blind people could navigate any new route without training, travel by underground/metro during rush hour without problems, and explore with confidence. Environments can be diverse and dynamic and unfortunately no universal gadget-aid solution yet exists to help navigation. Advances in mobile phone technology and entertainment devices such as the Kinect are allowing for new application scenarios to arise. In this paper, a system that could help interface a person to a wide range of environments is presented. The Path Force Feedback Belt system takes at a fixed rate dual images of the environment using a mobile device, it reconstructs a 3D model of the surroundings, and extracts features such as sidewalk corners, walls, and obstacles. The mobile device then determines which of the force feedback actuators on a 360° belt worn on the waist has to be signaled, hence providing path feedback.