Wearable Navigation Device for Visually Impaired Users
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing navigation technologies for visually impaired individuals provide insufficient information about the environment, fail to accurately represent relationships between objects and living beings, and lack the ability to generate detailed and safe navigation paths, leading to unsafe and inefficient navigation experiences.
Innovation Solution
A wearable device with a sensory unit, processing unit, and feedback system that acquires data from the environment, fuses it to create a live map, and generates navigation paths with detailed object and living being relationships, providing haptic and auditory guidance to ensure safe and accurate navigation.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If simple navigation methods like walking cane are used, then ease of operation is maintained, but navigation accuracy and safety information are insufficient
Solution Approach 1:
The navigation system is segmented into distinct functional modules: sensor module for data acquisition, processing module for path generation, and output module for haptic/auditory feedback. This segmentation allows complex navigation functionality to be achieved while maintaining manageable system complexity through modular design.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces a processing module as an intermediary between sensors and user feedback devices. This intermediary processes raw sensor data to generate navigation paths and translates environmental information into haptic and auditory cues, bridging the gap between complex sensing and simple user interaction.
2Reliability
If detailed environmental data is provided to visually impaired users, then navigation safety is improved, but information overload and user confusion increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system provides navigation information with local quality by focusing on relevant spatial relationships and obstacles in the user's immediate path rather than providing comprehensive environmental data. Haptic feedback is applied selectively at specific locations (e.g., left/right sides of body) to indicate directional information, making complex data locally manageable.
Solution Approach 2:
The system employs feedback mechanisms where haptic and auditory outputs respond to user movement and environmental changes in real-time. This continuous feedback loop allows the system to adjust information provision based on user needs, providing safety-critical information while avoiding overload by only presenting relevant updates.
3Measurement precision
If multiple sensors and processing units are added to improve navigation accuracy, then measurement precision increases, but device complexity and energy consumption increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary actions by pre-processing sensor data to identify navigation paths and obstacles before user movement requires response. Map data and object information are pre-processed and stored, allowing rapid navigation decisions without real-time heavy computation, thus reducing energy consumption during active navigation.
Solution Approach 2:
The navigation system dynamically adjusts its processing intensity and sensor activation based on user needs and environmental context. Not all sensors operate at full capacity continuously; instead, processing is adapted to the current navigation situation, optimizing the balance between measurement precision and energy consumption.
Data Source
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AI summary
In a first aspect of the invention, it is claimed a computer-implemented method for assisting the movement of a visually impaired user by means of a wearable device 1, comprising the following steps: S1- Acquiring data from the environment of the visually impaired user S2- Fusing the acquired data, creating, continuously updating of a Live Map S3- Determining, continuously updating and storing, of at least one navigation path together with associated navigation guiding instructions for the visually impaired user to navigate from the current position of the visually impaired user to a point of interest, continuously selecting one preferred navigation path from the at least one navigation path, and continuously sending to the visually impaired user the preferred navigation path, together with associated navigation guiding instructions. S4- Guiding the visually impaired user along the preferred navigation path, by using guiding modes for transmitting each associated navigation guiding instruction, comprising haptic and/or auditory cues. The invention details how the steps S2, S3 and S4 are carried out and also details the content of the Live Map. Said Live Map comprises data from the sensors regarding objects and living beings, relationships between the objects and the living beings and different types of areas: walkable area, non-walkable area and conditional walkable area, In a second aspect of the invention, it is claimed a wearable device for assisting the movement of a visually impaired user, configured to apply the steps of the method.