An information processing device calculates an occupancy rate of a pedestrian crossing in an image obtained by capturing an image of a traveling direction of a target person, determines a crossing status of the target person for the pedestrian crossing based on the calculated occupancy rate, and generates support information for supporting the target person crossing the pedestrian crossing based on the crossing status.

A human-interface device and a guiding apparatus for a visually impaired user including such human-interface device. The human-interface device includes a tactile module arranged to provide a set of haptic signals to a user, wherein the tactile module has a plurality of tactile units each arranged to provide at least a first haptic signal and operable to cooperate with one or more of other tactile units to provide different haptic signals.

Embodiments of the present disclosure disclose a method, apparatus, device, and storage medium for controlling a guide robot, and relate to the field of artificial intelligence, robots, and multi-sensor fusion technologies. A specific embodiment of the method includes: acquiring a state of the guide robot, a state of a user, and a position of an obstacle; generating a state update equation for a combined system of the guide robot and the user based on the state of the guide robot and the state of the user; generating a collision-free global path based on the position of the obstacle; generating a control command based on the state update equation for the combined system and the collision-free global path; and driving the guide robot to move based on the control command.

A method for providing information to a user, preferably including: determining environmental information; determining a set of features based on the information; determining output parameters based on the features; and controlling a sensory output system to generate outputs based on the output parameters. A sensory output device, preferably including a plurality of sensory output actuators. A system for providing information to a user, preferably including one or more: sensory output devices, sensors, and computing systems.

A method detects the image of an obstacle-free region surrounding a photograph-capturing unit. A photograph of a portion of the environment of the photograph-capturing unit is created by the photograph-capturing unit and a digital picture is created. The digital picture is examined for the presence of possible boundaries of an obstacle-free region, a boundary indicator value being determined for each individual pixel of the digital picture in accordance with the picture data of the digital picture within an environment of the pixel in question. The picture data being defined pixel by pixel, the boundary indicator value indicating the probability that the image of the boundary of an obstacle-free region is located within a specified pixel environment. A coordinate parameterization having two parameters is specified for the digital picture, which coordinate parameterization corresponds in particular to the pixel coordinates.

A communication support device comprises an imaging unit, a counterpart detector, a distance measuring unit, a expression determination unit, a motion determination unit, and a voice output unit. The imaging unit captures an image of a surrounding environment of a user. The counterpart detector detects a predetermined counterpart in the captured image. The distance measuring unit measures a distance between the counterpart and the imaging unit based on the captured image. The expression determination unit determines a facial expression of the counterpart based on the captured image. The motion determination unit determines a motion of the counterpart based on the captured image. The voice output unit notifies the user of identification information for identifying the counterpart by a voice when the distance measured by the distance measuring unit is an interaction distance of a first threshold or less. The voice output unit then notifies the user of the identification information and at least one of facial expression information related to the facial expression determined by the expression determination unit and motion information related to the motion determined by the motion determination unit by a voice when the distance measured by the distance measuring unit is longer than the first threshold.

In 2019, the World Health Organization stated that globally, approximately 2.2 billion people live with some form of vision impairment. Visual impairment limits the ability to perform everyday tasks and adversely affects the ability to interact with the surrounding world, thus discouraging individuals navigating unpredictable and unknown environments. The present invention is a method and a system to define and develop a smart navigation intelligent cane (i-Cane) that enables a visually impaired person to navigate his or her environment. The method and the system detects objects along the path of the visually impaired person, measures the distance of the objects from the person, identifies the objects, uses speech to alert the person of the approaching objects, the type of objects obstructing the path, and the distance between the objects and the person.

The present invention concerns a viewing apparatus comprising: a first optical line comprising: a projecting system adapted to project a light signal on a first area of the retina of an eye of a wearer of the viewing apparatus, a light signal generator generating the light signal to be projected, and a waveguide comprising an input coupler and an exit coupler, the waveguide being adapted to convey light from the input couple to the exit coupler, and optionally a second optical line comprising an optical system adapted to project a light signal of the environment on a second area of the retina of the eye of the wearer, the optical system comprising a part of the waveguide.

This invention described a Spatial Recognition Device (SRD) based on a mounted high precision measurement sensor that enables the user to detect and navigate around objects and obstacles like traditional white cane would, but without contact, and also allow the user to identify the location and shape of objects to enable identifying such obstacles and objects. The device can also provide route guidance through a GPS and collision avoidance through onboard and/or cloud based or hybrid computational systems, accelerometers and other sensors. The device enables sensing ranges from approximately one inch to a maximum range dependent on the high precision measurement sensor used in the device. This device would not be mounted on a “white cane” or similar assistive device.

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, repeatedly updating of a Live Map S3—Determining, repeatedly 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, repeatedly selecting one preferred navigation path from the at least one navigation path, and repeatedly sending to the visually impaired user the preferred navigation path, together with associated navigation guiding instructions.