Visual aid system for the blind using depth camera

Abstract

Although blind people are familiar with using cane, they still have troubles in orientation when they go to an unfamiliar place due to the lack of information about surrounding environment especially about exit and wall. This paper aims to reduce blind suffers by propose a navigation aid system called Visual Aid System for Blind. The system uses Kinect camera to acquire depth data of surrounding environment, recognizes distance and direction of wall and exit then report to the user by English speeches through earphones. The system shows potential and reliable results in navigation. However, the alert signals are still long and repeated, making user difficult to understand. Keywords: Blind aid, Depth image, Kinect, Wall exit detection.