A Cell Phone-based Sign Reader for Blind & Visually Impaired Persons

描述（由申请人提供）：我们建议开发和评估一个基于手机的系统，使盲人和视障人士找到和阅读路标和其他相关的路标。使用标准手机的内置摄像头和计算能力，该系统将处理用户捕获的图像，以查找和分析标志，并说出其内容。这将为失明或视障的行人提供宝贵的帮助，帮助他们寻找和阅读街道标志，以及确定地址和商店名称，而无需他们携带任何特殊用途的硬件。标志寻找和阅读软件将免费提供下载到任何配备摄像头的手机，使用广泛的塞班操作系统（如流行的诺基亚手机系列）。我们将建立在我们以前和正在进行的工作中应用计算机视觉技术解决实际问题的盲人，包括手机实现算法的室内寻路和阅读数字家电显示。我们将开发、改进并转移到手机平台上一种新的基于信念传播的算法，该算法在困难的现实条件下（包括部分阴影覆盖）发现和分析迹象方面取得了初步成功。人为因素研究将有助于确定如何配置系统及其用户控件，以实现最大的有效性和易用性，并对整个系统进行评估。视力正常的人每天都认为获得环境标签、标志或地标是理所当然的，但大约有1 000万有严重视力障碍的美国人和100万法定盲人在这项任务中面临严重困难。拟议的研究将产生一个高度可访问的系统（对用户来说成本为零或最低），以增强现有的寻路技术，这可以显着改善盲人和视障人士的独立旅行。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): We propose to develop and evaluate a cell-phone-based system to enable blind and visually impaired individuals to find and read street signs and other signs relevant to wayfinding. Using the built-in camera and computing power of a standard cell phone, the system will process images captured by the user to find and analyze signs, and speak their contents. This will provide valuable assistance for blind or visually impaired pedestrians in finding and reading street signs, as well as locating and identifying addresses and store names, without requiring them to carry any special-purpose hardware. The sign finding and reading software will be made freely available for download into any camera-equipped cell phone that uses the widespread Symbian operating system (such as the popular Nokia cell phone series). We will build on our prior and ongoing work in applying computer vision techniques to practical problem-solving for blind persons, including cell-phone implementation of algorithms for indoor wayfinding and for reading digital appliance displays. We will develop, refine and transfer to the cell phone platform a new belief propagation-based algorithm that has shown preliminary success in finding and analyzing signs under difficult real-world conditions including partial shadow coverage. Human factors studies will help determine how to configure the system and its user controls for maximum effectiveness and ease of use, and provide an evaluation of the overall system. Access to environmental labels, signs or landmarks is taken for granted every day by the sighted, but approximately 10 million Americans with significant vision impairments and a million who are legally blind face severe difficulties in this task. The proposed research would result in a highly accessible system (with zero or minimal cost to users) to augment existing wayfinding techniques, which could dramatically improve independent travel for blind and visually impaired persons.