Detecting Traversable Area and Water Hazards for the Visually Impaired with a pRGB-D Sensor
College of Optical Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China
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Sensors 2017, 17(8), 1890; https://doi.org/10.3390/s17081890
Received: 9 July 2017
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Revised: 6 August 2017
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Accepted: 11 August 2017
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Published: 17 August 2017
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Imaging Depth Sensors—Sensors, Algorithms and Applications)
The use of RGB-Depth (RGB-D) sensors for assisting visually impaired people (VIP) has been widely reported as they offer portability, function-diversity and cost-effectiveness. However, polarization cues to assist traversability awareness without precautions against stepping into water areas are weak. In this paper, a polarized RGB-Depth (pRGB-D) framework is proposed to detect traversable area and water hazards simultaneously with polarization-color-depth-attitude information to enhance safety during navigation. The approach has been tested on a pRGB-D dataset, which is built for tuning parameters and evaluating the performance. Moreover, the approach has been integrated into a wearable prototype which generates a stereo sound feedback to guide visually impaired people (VIP) follow the prioritized direction to avoid obstacles and water hazards. Furthermore, a preliminary study with ten blindfolded participants suggests its effectivity and reliability.
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Keywords:
traversable area detection; water hazard detection; RGB-D sensor; polarized stereo; ZED; visually impaired people
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This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited
MDPI and ACS Style
Yang, K.; Wang, K.; Cheng, R.; Hu, W.; Huang, X.; Bai, J. Detecting Traversable Area and Water Hazards for the Visually Impaired with a pRGB-D Sensor. Sensors 2017, 17, 1890. https://doi.org/10.3390/s17081890
AMA Style
Yang K, Wang K, Cheng R, Hu W, Huang X, Bai J. Detecting Traversable Area and Water Hazards for the Visually Impaired with a pRGB-D Sensor. Sensors. 2017; 17(8):1890. https://doi.org/10.3390/s17081890
Chicago/Turabian StyleYang, Kailun, Kaiwei Wang, Ruiqi Cheng, Weijian Hu, Xiao Huang, and Jian Bai. 2017. "Detecting Traversable Area and Water Hazards for the Visually Impaired with a pRGB-D Sensor" Sensors 17, no. 8: 1890. https://doi.org/10.3390/s17081890
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