Role of Object Identification in sonification System for Visually Impaired

In this paper the role of object identification in sanification system for Navigation Assistance Visually Impaired (NAVI) is discussed. The developed system includes Single Board Processing System (SBPS), vision sensor mounted headgear and stereo earphones. The vision sensor captures the vision information in front of blind user. The captured image is processed to identify the object in the image. Object identification is achieved by a real time image processing methodology using fuzzy algorithms. The processed image is mapped onto stereo acoustic patterns and transferred to the stereo earphones in the system. Blind individuals were trained with NAVI system and tested for obstacle identification. Suggestions from the blind volunteers regarding pleasantness and discrimination of sound pattern were also incorporated in the prototype. With the object identification, the discrimination of object and background with the sound is found to be easier compared to sound produced from the unprocessed image