Title: State of the art review on walking support system for visually impaired people

Authors: Eklas Hossain; Md Raisuddin Khan; Riza Muhida; Ahad Ali

Addresses: Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, 2200 N. Cramer St., WI 53211, USA. ' Department of Mechatronics Engineering, International Islamic University of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur 53100, Malaysia. ' Department of Mechatronics Engineering, International Islamic University of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur 53100, Malaysia. ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, Lawrence Technological University, MI 21000, USA

Abstract: The technology for terrain detection and walking support system for blind people has rapidly been improved the last couple of decades but to assist visually impaired people may have started long ago. Currently, a variety of portable or wearable navigation systems is available in the market to help the blind for navigating their way in his local or remote area. The focused category in this work can be subgroups as electronic travel aids (ETAs), electronic orientation aids (EOAs) and position locator devices (PLDs). However, we will focus mainly on electronic travel aids (ETAs). This paper presents a comparative survey among the various portable or wearable walking support systems as well as informative description (a subcategory of ETAs or early stages of ETAs) with its working principal advantages and disadvantages so that the researchers can easily get the current stage of assisting blind technology along with the requirement for optimising the design of walking support system for its users.

Keywords: electric assistive technologies; EATs; review; navigation systems; walking support systems; obstacle avoidance; visually impaired; visual impairment; blind people; electronic travel aids; portable technology; wearable technology.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBBR.2011.043751

International Journal of Biomechatronics and Biomedical Robotics, 2011 Vol.1 No.4, pp.232 - 251

Published online: 21 Mar 2015 *

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