Horus headset helps visually impaired people to recognize faces and the situation around
News Devices / / December 19, 2019
About 300 million people have difficulties in everyday life due to impaired vision or blindness. People simply can not cross the road, or to read the sign. Horus headset mitigates complexity as possible.
Once Saverio and Luke, the usual Italian students who were returning home from the university and met a blind man. He could not get to the bus stop and asked for help. Young people do not remain indifferent and responded to the request.
I struck up a conversation, and it turned out that this is only a small part of the problems that have to live with low vision. Thus, the blind told how to draw in the imagination and move the map area in the corners of the building. However, he was forced to stop at traffic lights, because many of them do not emit signals.
On that day, Saverio and Luke realized that their specialization in robotics and computer vision can improve the lives of people whose eyes can not see. So was born the project portable assistant Horus. The device monitors, detects and describes the human environment.
Horus is made up of two parts: a handheld data processing center and the headset, which is fixed at eye level. Together, they are bound by long cable. Mini PC is based on a powerful computing NVIDIA Tegra platform, for its food meets the high-capacity battery. The headset includes a dual chamber, microphone and speaker.
The user can activate one of the gadget's features with just a few buttons on both the headset and on the handheld unit. The buttons are easy to distinguish because of individual form. In some situations, Horus takes the initiative and is an automatic action, if it considers that can benefit right now.
The functionality of Horus:
- Reading the text. The device recognizes printed text, including on uneven surfaces. The software quickly captures the entire page and feeds this signal - you can now drop the book and turn the camera in a different direction.
- Face Detection. Gadget releases people from the situation and makes it clear this is a familiar person or not. The addition of new faces in the database takes a matter of seconds.
- Defining objects. Thanks to the three-dimensional perception of Horus distinguish objects that are similar in size and shape, such as a carton of milk and a box of juice. Listing Detail describes the voice assistant.
- route guidance. When moving a stereo quickly alert the user of an obstacle on the way: the closer it is, the stronger the signal.
- Description of the environment. Due to modern advances in artificial intelligence Horus says that enters the camera lens. For example, the device can describe the real landscape or photo.
It should be noted that Horus transmits voice prompts through bone conduction. Thus, the sound is not released into the environment and it can not be heard from outside. The developers have worked on the possibility to connect a personal hearing devices.
Today gadget speaks English, Japanese and Italian. In the future there will be other European languages. Device testing a limited number of volunteers from Italy. Certainly among them is a man who previously could not find the bus stop without help. Now it is under his power.