Walking guide system for the visually impaired by using three-dimensional sound

We describe a walking guide system for the visually impaired. The system is constructed with an omni-vision image sensor and three-dimensional sound processor. The image sensor consists of a spherical mirror and a CCD camera. The three-dimensional sound processor presents position information acquired by an omni-vision sensor to a subject as a sound source of pink noise, and the subject walks in the direction that the system indicates. In the experiment, we first requested the subjects to move to the sound source in a virtual space with an operating joystick. An omni-vision sensor was not used in this experiment. From the results of the experiment, it was clear that the subjects were able to home to the sound source, so we made the next experiment with an omni-vision sensor. In the next experiment, we set an infrared LED marker on the table, and requested disoriented subjects to walk to the table. As a result, three-dimensional sound is available for the walking guide