Part of the book series:Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 8515))
Included in the following conference series:
3521Accesses
Abstract
In this paper, we present a wearable tactile device called TAG (TActile Glasses) to help visually impaired individuals navigate through complex environments. The TAG device provides vibrotactile feedback whenever an obstacle is detected in front of the user. The prototype is composed of – in addition to the eyeglasses – an infrared proximity sensor, an ATMEGA128 microprocessor, a rechargeable battery, and a vibrotactile actuator attached to the right temple tip of the glasses. The TAG system is designed to be highly portable, fashionable yet cost effective, and intuitive to use. Experimental study showed that the TAG system can help visually impaired individuals to navigate unfamiliar lab environment using vibrotactile feedback, and without any previous training. Participants reported that the system is intuitive to use, quick to learn, and helpful.
Chapter PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
References
World Health Organization (WHO), Visual Impairment and Blindness. Fact Sheet (282) (October 2013)
Hersh, M.A., Johnson, M.A.: Assistive Technology for Visually Impaired and Blind People. Springer, London (2008)
Dakopoulos, D., Bourbakis, N.G.: Wearable obstacle avoidance electronic travel aids for blind: A survey. IEEE Trans. on Syst. Man. Cybern C Appl. Rev. 40, 25–35 (2010)
Bhattacharjee, A., Ye, A.J., Lisak, J.A., Vargas, M.G., Goldreich, D.: Vibrotactile Masking Experiments Reveal Accelerated Somatosensory Processing in Congenitally Blind Braille Readers. Journal of Neuroscience 30(43), 14288 (2010)
Bach-y-Rita, P., Kercel, W.W.: Sensory substitution and the human-machine interface. Trends in Cognitive Neuroscience 7(12), 541–546 (2003)
Visell, Y.: Tactile sensory substitution: Models for enaction in HCI. Interacting with Computers 21(1-2), 38–53 (2009)
Wu, J., Zhang, J., Yan, J., Liu, W., Song, G.: Design of a Vibrotactile Vest for Contour Perception. International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems 9, 166 (2012)
Yuan, D., Manduchi, R.: A tool for range sensing and environment discovery for the blind. In: IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Workshop, p. 39 (2004)
Moller, K., Toth, F., Wang, L., Moller, J., Arras, K.O., Bach, M., Schumann, S., Guttmann, J.: Enhanced Perception for Visually Impaired People. In: 3rd International Conference on Bioinformatics and Biomedical Engineering, pp. 1–4 (2009)
Rombokas, E., Stepp, C.E., Chang, C., Malhotra, M., Matsuoka, Y.: Vibrotactile Sensory Substitution for Electromyographic Control of Object Manipulation. IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering 60(8), 2226–2232 (2013)
Bach-Y-Rita, P., Tyler, M.E., Kaczmarek, K.A.: Seeing with the brain. International Journal of Human Computer Interaction 15(2), 285–295 (2003)
Ptito, M., Moesgaard, S.M., Gjedde, A., Kupers, R.: Cross-modal plasticity revealed by electrotactile stimulation of the tongue in the congenitally blind. Brain 128, 606–614 (2005)
Ertan, S., Lee, C., Willets, A., Tan, H., Pentland, A.: A wearable haptic navigation guidance system. In: Second International Symposium on Wearable Computers, pp. 164–165 (1998)
Pissaloux, E.E., Velazquez, R., Maingreaud, F.: On 3D world perception: towards a definition of a cognitive map based electronic travel aid. In: 26th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, pp. 107–109 (2004)
Zelek, J.S., Asmar, D.: A robot’s spatial perception communicated via human touch. In: IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man and Cybernetics, vol. 1, pp. 454–461 (2003)
Akhter, S., Mirsalahuddin, J., Marquina, F.B., Islam, S., Sareen, S.: A Smartphone-based Haptic Vision Substitution system for the blind. In: IEEE 37th Annual Northeast Bioengineering Conference (NEBEC), pp. 1–3 (2011)
Wheeler, J., Bark, K., Savall, J., Cutkosky, M.: Investigation of Rotational Skin Stretch for Proprioceptive Feedback With Application to Myoelectric Systems. IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering 18(1), 58–66 (2010)
Bourbakis, N., Keefer, R., Dakopoulos, D., Esposito, A.: A Multimodal Interaction Scheme between a Blind User and the Tyflos Assistive Prototype. In: 20th IEEE International Conference on Tools with Artificial Intelligence, pp. 487–494 (2008)
Dakopoulos, D., Bourbakis, N.: Towards a 2D tactile vocabulary for navigation of blind and visually impaired. In: IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man and Cybernetics, pp. 45–51 (2009)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Applied Interactive Multimedia Lab, Division of Engineering, New York University Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
Georgios Korres & Mohamad Eid
Lebanese University, Nabatieh, Lebanon
Ahmad El Issawi
- Georgios Korres
You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar
- Ahmad El Issawi
You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar
- Mohamad Eid
You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Foundation for Research and Technology - Hellas (FORTH)Institute of Computer Science, N. Plastira 100, Vassilika Vouton, 70013, Heraklion, Crete, Greece
Constantine Stephanidis & Margherita Antona &
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2014 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this paper
Cite this paper
Korres, G., El Issawi, A., Eid, M. (2014). TActile Glasses (TAG) for Obstacle Avoidance. In: Stephanidis, C., Antona, M. (eds) Universal Access in Human-Computer Interaction. Aging and Assistive Environments. UAHCI 2014. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 8515. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-07446-7_70
Download citation
Publisher Name:Springer, Cham
Print ISBN:978-3-319-07445-0
Online ISBN:978-3-319-07446-7
eBook Packages:Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)
Share this paper
Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:
Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.
Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative