AR Smart Glasses Force Feedback for Visually Impaired Object Guidance
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Existing assistive technologies, such as smart glasses, provide voice guidance but lack cost-effective precision control to enable visually impaired users to accurately pick up objects.
Innovation Solution
The system integrates smart glasses that process real-time depth data and combine it with hand gesture data to provide force feedback, using devices like gloves with buzzers or smart watches to guide the user's hand to identified objects.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If voice guidance is used to guide visually impaired users to objects, then the system is simple and cost-effective, but the precision and accuracy of locating and interacting with objects is insufficient
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces force feedback devices (such as vibration motors or haptic feedback mechanisms) as an intermediary between the smart glasses system and the user's hand. This intermediary translates spatial information into tactile signals that guide the user's hand to the target object with precision, resolving the contradiction between simplicity and accuracy.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces the purely auditory voice guidance system with a tactile feedback mechanism. Instead of relying on audio signals to convey spatial information, the system uses mechanical force feedback directly on the user's hand, enabling precise localization without significantly increasing overall system complexity.
2Ease of operation
If force feedback devices are added to provide tactile guidance, then the precision control is improved, but the device complexity and cost increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent integrates the force feedback mechanism into an existing component of the smart glasses system, allowing the same hardware infrastructure to serve multiple functions: visual display, audio output, and now tactile feedback. This multi-functionality approach enables enhanced ease of operation without proportionally increasing device complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The force feedback system operates autonomously by processing depth data and hand gesture recognition to automatically generate appropriate tactile guidance signals. The system serves itself by using the user's own hand movements and the captured depth information to drive the feedback mechanism, reducing the need for additional complex control systems.
3Measurement precision
If real-time depth data processing is implemented, then the accuracy of object location is improved, but the computational requirements and processing time increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent performs depth data processing and object location calculations in advance, preparing spatial guidance information before the user needs to interact with objects. By pre-processing the depth data and pre-calculating the guidance signals, the system reduces real-time processing requirements and latency, maintaining high accuracy while minimizing time loss.
Data Source
AI summary
A system and method provide feedback to a user, such as a visually impaired user, to guide the user to an object in the field of view of a camera mounted on a frame worn on the head of the user. A processor identifies at least one object and a body part of the user in the field of view of the camera and tracks relative positions of the body part relative to the identified object. The processor also generates and communicates at least one control signal for guiding the body part of the user to the identified object to a user feedback device worn on or adjacent the body part of the user. The feedback device receives the control signal(s) and converts the control signal(s) into at least one of sounds or haptic feedback that guides the body part to the identified object.