ATADAssistive Technology for an Autonomous Displacement
- Belén Ruiz Mezcua Director/a
- José Manuel Sánchez Pena Director/a
Universidad de defensa: Universidad Carlos III de Madrid
Fecha de defensa: 21 de junio de 2013
- Carlos Balaguer Bernaldo de Quirós Presidente/a
- Luis Alfonso Hernández Gómez Secretario/a
- Maria Manuela Cruz Cunha Vocal
Tipo: Tesis
Resumen
The project developed in this thesis involves the design, implementation and evaluation of a new technical assistance aiming to ease the mobility of people with visual impairments. By using processing and sounds synthesis, the users can hear the sonification protocol (through bone conduction) informing them, after training, about the position and distance of the various obstacles that may be on their way, avoiding eventual accidents. In this project, surveys were conducted with experts in the field of rehabilitation, blindness and techniques of image processing and sound, which defined the user requirements that served as guideline for the design. The thesis consists of three self-contained blocks: (i) image processing, where 4 processing algorithms are proposed for stereo vision, (ii) sonification, which details the proposed sound transformation of visual information, and (iii) a final central chapter on integrating the above and sequentially evaluated in two versions or implementation modes (software and hardware). Both versions have been tested with both sighted and blind participants, obtaining qualitative and quantitative results, which define future improvements to the project. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------