Bone-conduction audio interface to guide people with visual impairments

Authors: Lock Jacobus C.; Gilchrist Iain D.; Cielniak Grzegorz; Bellotto Nicola

Journal: 17700155007

Conference: 7th International Conference on Smart City and Informatization, iSCI 2019

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2019

DOI: 10.1007/978-981-15-1301-5_43

Volume: 1122, Pages: 542-553

Keywords: Bone-conduction; Human-machine interface; Spatialised sound; Varying pitch; Vision impairment;

Research Topics: Headphones; Computer science; Interface (matter); Bone conduction; Set (abstract data type)

Citations: 4 (source: OpenAlex)

Abstract

The ActiVis project’s aim is to build a mobile guidance aid to help people with limited vision find objects in an unknown environment. This system uses bone-conduction headphones to transmit audio signals to the user and requires an effective non-visual interface. To this end, we propose a new audio-based interface that uses a spatialised signal to convey a target’s position on the horizontal plane. The vertical position on the median plan is given by adjusting the tone’s pitch to overcome the audio localisation limitations of bone-conduction headphones. This interface is validated through a set of experiments with blindfolded and visually impaired participants.