The present invention relates to tactile warning panels, and in particular to tactile warning panels that are designed and built with multifunction/multipurpose capabilities that serve the visually impaired and enable the deployment of smart city technology by integrating tactile warning systems and subsurface enclosures that can withstand pressures of five (5) tons up to and exceeding sixty (60) tons and incorporate small cells, beacons, sensors, Fog Computing, electric energy generation, rechargeable power supplies, wireless M2M communication and a plethora of other smart city technologies.

Mechanisms for providing environment information to a visually impaired person (VIP) are provided, the mechanisms including: receiving information relating to a direction from a VIP when in an environment using at least one hardware processor; identifying at least one object in the direction from the VIP when in the environment; and providing environment information regarding at least one object to the VIP. In some of these embodiments, the environment is a virtual environment. In some of these embodiments, the information relating to the direction is a bearing relative to a reference from the VIP. In some of these embodiments, the information is image data. In some of these embodiments, the method further comprises: determining that the direction has changed; and stopping providing the environment information in response to determining that the direction has changed.

When it is determined that a presence of a traffic light is not recognized in an image acquired by a first image acquisition operation by a camera, the presence of the traffic light is recognized in an image acquired by a second image acquisition operation in which a recognition accuracy of the presence of the traffic light is improved. In this second image acquisition operation, it is assumed that a pedestrian is stopped in front of a pedestrian crossing, and there is little demand for increasing a detection speed of objects such as moving objects present in a surrounding area. Thus, it is possible to sufficiently obtain the recognition accuracy of the traffic light by the second image acquisition operation that gives priority to the recognition accuracy of the presence of the traffic light.

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.

A system and method provide feedback to a user, such as a visually impaired user, to guide the user to an object in the field of view of a camera mounted on a frame worn on the head of the user. A processor identifies at least one object and a body part of the user in the field of view of the camera and tracks relative positions of the body part relative to the identified object. The processor also generates and communicates at least one control signal for guiding the body part of the user to the identified object to a user feedback device worn on or adjacent the body part of the user. The feedback device receives the control signal(s) and converts the control signal(s) into at least one of sounds or haptic feedback that guides the body part to the identified object.

A system and method provide feedback to a user, such as a visually impaired user, to guide the user to an object in the field of view of a camera mounted on a frame worn on the head of the user. A processor identifies at least one object and a body part of the user in the field of view of the camera and tracks relative positions of the body part relative to the identified object. The processor also generates and communicates at least one control signal for guiding the body part of the user to the identified object to a user feedback device worn on or adjacent the body part of the user. The feedback device receives the control signal(s) and converts the control signal(s) into at least one of sounds or haptic feedback that guides the body part to the identified object.

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.

Systems and methods relating to displaying images are disclosed. In one embodiment, sensor data is received via one or more sensors of a wearable head device comprising a display, the sensor data indicative of a surrounding environment of a user of the wearable head device. An image can be determined based on the sensor data, the image corresponding to the surrounding environment. A visibility of a first portion of the image corresponding to a first portion of the surrounding environment can be enhanced. Enhancing a visibility of a second portion of the image corresponding to a second portion of the surrounding environment can be forgone. The enhanced first portion of the image and a view of the second portion of the surrounding environment can be presented concurrently via the display of the wearable head device.

When there is an area that cannot be confirmed as a white line based on an image acquired by a camera, it is determined that the area that cannot be confirmed as the white line is an area that can be regarded as the white line, on condition that the area that cannot be confirmed as the white line is located in an area between a first straight line connecting edges of one ends of the area that can be confirmed as the white line in a longitudinal direction of the white line and extension lines of the first straight line, and a second straight line connecting edges of the other ends and extension lines of the second straight line. For the area that can be regarded as the white line, a shape of the area in the image is set to a shape as a white line.

Vision-assist devices and methods are disclosed. In one embodiment, a vision-assist device includes an image sensor for generating image data corresponding to a scene, a processor, and an inertia measuring unit. The inertia measuring unit is configured to measure forces acting on the image sensor and the orientation of the image sensor. The processor is configured to receive the image data from the image sensor and process the force and orientation of the image sensor so as to determine a tilt of the image sensor. The processor is further configured to process the image data based on at least the tilt of the at least one image sensor so as to generate a corrected image data, wherein the corrected image data does not include the tilt.