Virtual white cane featuring time-of-flight 3D imaging supporting visually impaired users

Norbert Druml, Thomas Pietsch, Markus Dielacher, Christian Steger, Marcus Baumgart, Cristina Consani, Thomas Herndl, Gerald Holweg

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference paperpeer-review

Abstract

Supporting visually impaired people in their everyday's life is of crucial importance. Thanks to the technological advancements in semiconductors and cyber-physical systems, novel powerful tools and capabilities emerged recently. The integration of miniaturized Time-of-Flight 3D imaging modules combined with vast CPU and GPU power into commercially available smart phones, is a major enabler for a future virtual white cane aiding visually impaired people. This work presents a virtual white cane prototype which in particular targets visually impaired persons and vulnerable road users in general. It exploits the unique 3D environment perception features of a commercially available smart phone in order to perceive the environment in a three dimensional way based on the Time-of-Flight 3D imaging technology. This work not only introduces new concepts, such as a combined v disparity / RANSAC ground plane detection and the so-called Conservative Polar Histogram, it also considerably outperforms the object detection performance compared to state-of-the-art approaches.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings - 21st Euromicro Conference on Digital System Design, DSD 2018
PublisherInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Pages450-457
Number of pages8
ISBN (Electronic)9781538673768
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 12 Oct 2018
Event21st Euromicro Conference on Digital System Design, DSD 2018 - Prague, Czech Republic
Duration: 29 Aug 201831 Aug 2018

Conference

Conference21st Euromicro Conference on Digital System Design, DSD 2018
Abbreviated titleDSD 2018
Country/TerritoryCzech Republic
CityPrague
Period29/08/1831/08/18

Keywords

  • 3D sensing
  • Conservative Polar Histogram
  • RANSAC
  • Time-of-Flight
  • V Disparity
  • Virtual White Cane

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Hardware and Architecture

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