A movement assistance apparatus to be provided in a movement assistance device and configured to execute a movement assistance operation for assisting movement of a user includes a mode switching control unit configured to switch, based on a magnitude of a surrounding risk on the movement of the user, a power mode between a normal mode in which the movement assistance operation is executable and a power saving mode in which a power consumption is smaller than a power consumption in the normal mode. A condition for setting the power mode to the power saving mode includes a condition that the surrounding risk satisfies a predetermined low-risk condition.

A method and apparatus for recognizing walking information using multiple magnetic sensors are provided. The method for recognizing walking information comprises generating a magnetic sensing signal from magnetic paint applied to a ground, generating a frequency-converted signal using the magnetic sensing signal, and generating walking information using the frequency-converted signal.

A cane tip has a first roller and second roller, each roller having a semispherical exterior surface with a peripheral edge surface having a circular configuration. The peripheral edge surfaces are designed to engage with and roll over a support surface when the cane tip is being moved forwardly and rearwardly to reduce impact forces from being transmitted up the cane to the user's hand and arm. The spherical exterior surfaces are designed to engage with and roll over the support surface when the cane tip is moved from side to side while reducing impact forces from traveling up the cane to the hand and arm of a user of the cane tip.

A system and apparatus for a mobility cane for the visually impaired to help aid pedestrian identification and provide walking assistance are described. The disclosed embodiments describe, amongst other things, a mobility cane whose shaft length may be illuminated and/or may utilize sensor information to determine illumination patterns. The cane may be a stand-alone device, or may be used in conjunction with a smart mobile device (e.g. smart phone).

Method, systems, and apparatus to facilitate navigation in a known environment. Communication and tracking between a receiver device and one or more beacons are provided to identify a current position of the receiver device. A direction to a next waypoint of a current path is determined based on the identified current position and a haptic feedback system is signaled to provide continuous haptic feedback to orient a user in the identified direction.

Herein disclosed a system and method of an intelligent visually impaired guiding system to help visually impaired people navigate easily when walking. The purpose of this invention is to create method, system, and apparatus, which assist the navigation of visually impaired people when walking, by following the trajectory path constructed by the system based on real-time environment condition. The invention provides an intelligent method of 3D sound point generation by utilizing the natural ability of humans to localize sounds. Therefore, this invention will eliminate biased information when navigating and increase the level of independence of visually impaired people.

A tactile sense presentation device includes: an object information acquisition part configured to acquire, as a state of an object, object information related to at least one selected from the group of a position, a direction, a distance, a speed, an acceleration, and urgency; and a tactile stimulus presentation part configured to present the state of the object as a tactile stimulus in a pseudo manner based on the object information.

An image area including a traffic light in an image taken by a camera is determined, and the determined image area including the traffic light is extracted and the extracted image area is subjected to enlargement processing to determine whether a status of the traffic light is red or green, and notice to start crossing is provided to a user under a condition that the status of the traffic light switches from red to green. Consequently, even with image information from a single camera alone, accuracy in recognition of the traffic light can sufficiently be enhanced. As a result, crossing start notice can properly be provided without an increase in configuration complexity and weight of the system.

Methods, systems, and apparatuses are described that are configured for determining a path of an apparatus, engaging a motor to cause the apparatus to proceed along the path, receiving one or more of LIDAR data, ultrasonic data, or optical flow data, determining, based on one or more of the LIDAR data, the ultrasonic data, or the optical flow data, one or more objects in the path of the apparatus, and engaging the motor to cause the apparatus to avoid the one or more objects.

A virtual reality system is described herein. The virtual reality system includes a cane controller and a computing system. The cane controller comprises a rod, a sensor, and a brake mechanism, wherein the sensor is configured to generate a signal that is indicative of position, direction of movement, and velocity of the rod, and wherein the brake mechanism is configured to apply a force to the rod. The computing system receives the signal, computes a position, direction of movement, and velocity of a virtual rod in a virtual space, and outputs a control signal to the brake mechanism based upon such computation. The brake mechanism applies the force to the rod in a direction and with a magnitude indicated in the control signal, thereby preventing the user from causing the virtual rod to penetrate a virtual barrier in the virtual space.