DSP-based ultrasonic navigation aid for the blind

Author

Mihajlik, P. ; Guttermuth, M. ; Seres, K. ; Tatai, P.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Telecommun. & Telematics, Budapest Univ. of Technol. & Econ., Hungary

Volume

3

fYear

2001

fDate

2001

Firstpage

1535

Abstract

This paper introduces a novel navigation aid for the blind designed at our laboratory. The system detects obstacles in front of the user by the help of ultrasonic echolocation and indicates the distance and horizontal position of the nearest detected object by spatial stereo sound effects. The instrument is based on a fixed-point digital signal processor. The applied object-localization method as well as the principle of the binaural audio feedback are discussed. Also, the operation and structure of the hardware are briefly introduced. Finally, some measurement results on an experimental device are reported

Keywords

audio signal processing; biomedical ultrasonics; digital signal processing chips; feedback; handicapped aids; sensory aids; DSP-based aid; binaural audio feedback; blind person aid; fixed-point digital signal processor; object-localization method; obstacle detection; portable instrument; spatial stereo sound effects; ultrasonic echolocation; ultrasonic navigation aid; Auditory system; Circuits; Digital signal processing; Digital signal processors; Feedback; Instruments; Navigation; Object detection; Transmitters; Ultrasonic imaging;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Instrumentation and Measurement Technology Conference, 2001. IMTC 2001. Proceedings of the 18th IEEE

Conference_Location

Budapest

ISSN

1091-5281

Print_ISBN

0-7803-6646-8

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/IMTC.2001.929462

Filename

929462