Stereo camera based virtual cane system with identifiable distance tactile feedback for the blind

In this paper, we propose a new haptic-assisted virtual cane system operated by a simple finger pointing gesture. The system is developed by two stages: development of visual information delivery assistant (VIDA) with a stereo camera and adding a tactile feedback interface with dual actuators for guidance and distance feedbacks. In the first stage, user's pointing finger is automatically detected using color and disparity data from stereo images and then a 3D pointing direction of the finger is estimated with its geometric and textural features. Finally, any object within the estimated pointing trajectory in 3D space is detected and the distance is then estimated in real time. For the second stage, identifiable tactile signals are designed through a series of identification experiments, and an identifiable tactile feedback interface is developed and integrated into the VIDA system. Our approach differs in that navigation guidance is provided by a simple finger pointing gesture and tactile distance feedbacks are perfectly identifiable to the blind.