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

基于手机的盲人标志阅读器

基本信息

批准号：
7911722
负责人：
JAMES M COUGHLAN
金额：
$ 42.31万
依托单位：
SMITH-KETTLEWELL EYE RESEARCH INSTITUTE
依托单位国家：
美国
项目类别：
财政年份：
2009
资助国家：
美国
起止时间：
2009-09-01 至 2012-08-31
项目状态：
已结题

项目摘要

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.

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，以使盲人和视力障碍的人找到和阅读与寻路相关的路标和其他标志。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。这将为盲人或视力障碍的行人在查找和阅读街道标志以及找到和识别地址和商店名称时提供宝贵的帮助，而无需他们携带任何专用的硬件。符号查找和阅读软件将免费下载到任何使用广泛的Symbian操作系统（例如流行的诺基亚手机系列）的手机中。我们将以我们先前和正在进行的工作为基础，将计算机视觉技术应用于盲人的实际问题解决方案，包括用于室内寻路的算法的手机实施以及用于阅读数字设备显示器。我们将开发，完善并转移到手机平台上一种新的基于信念传播的算法，该算法在在困难的真实世界条件下查找和分析标志（包括部分阴影覆盖率）方面已显示出最初的成功。人为因素研究将有助于确定如何配置系统及其用户控制，以最大程度地有效性和易用性，并对整个系统进行评估。每天都可以将环境标签，标志或地标可被视为理所当然，但是约有1000万美国人有巨大的视力障碍，而在法律上是盲人在这项任务中遇到严重困难的美国人。拟议的研究将导致高度可访问的系统（对用户的成本为零或最低成本），以增强现有的寻路技术，这可能会大大改善盲人和视力障碍者的独立旅行。