Navigation system for the visually impaired individuals with the kinect and vibrotactile belt

This paper presents an efficient navigation system which presents the navigation information to the visually impaired via Kinect and vibrotactile belt. The system consists of three parts. The first part is Kinect, which is used for obstacles detection. The second part is a laptop, the laptop processes the depth data of the context acquired by the Kinect, and then translates safe guidance hint into vibration information. The system also combines the function of GPS utilizing the speech recognition module and Google Maps. The third part is the vibrotactile belt which is fixed on the waist. Once wearing the belt, the visually impaired can accurately “feel” the direction prompt with the 8×2 vibration motors array. The laptop, Kinect and other elements are mounted on a walking aid. The visually impaired can walk independently with the support of the walker. Two experiments are conducted to test the performance of the system. The results show that the system is able to identify the obstacles in front and give the visually impaired corresponding prompt. It could make the visually impaired walking in a larger range independently and more safely.