Journal of Life Support Engineering
Online ISSN : 1884-5827
Print ISSN : 1341-9455
ISSN-L : 1341-9455
Detection of obstacles including down stairs for Electronic Tbeavel Aid
Hiromi WatanabeTanzawa TsutomuShinji KotaniNoriaki Kiyohiro
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2008 Volume 20 Issue 4 Pages 142-149

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Abstract
A wearable electronic travel aid to guide visually impaired has been developed. Visually impaired are at risk of a lot of accidents on a solo walking. Therefore, it is necessary to support safety walking with the electronic travel aids. The detection of the obstacles is one important factor for the safety. In this paper, the method of detection of the obstacles is proposed. Descending down steps like the platform and down stairs are very dangerous places. Therefore, the obstacles to detect are walls, upstairs, descending down steps and downstairs. An IR range finder and the fuzzy reasoning are used to detect these objects. The production rules used for the fuzzy reasoning are made based on using human being's sense. The experimental results show that the obstacles could be detected and distinguish a type by the coverage of 100% at 750mm in front of the obstacles. The results showed this device is effective as the detection device of the obstacle to support the visually impaired. The researched and developed device was practicable and suitable for the life environment.
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