Haptic interfaces as aids for visually impaired persons

Abstract

At the University of Bologna, an interdisciplinary project is active in order to investigate the possibility of implementing and testing a robotic system to help the mobility of visually impaired persons. The adopted solution is based on the conversion of stereo vision images into virtual "bas-relief" surfaces, perceivable by the user by means of a suitable (portable) haptic interface. In the paper, details on the adopted solutions and the developed prototypes are given as well as the experimental results obtained so far.