This paper proposes an effective and wearable mobility aid aimed at improving the quality of life of people suffering for visual disabilities by enabling autonomous and safe navigation in unknown environments. Our system relies on dense and accurate depth maps, provided in real-time by a compact stereo vision system mapped into an FPGA, in order to detect obstacles in front of the user and to provide accordingly vibration feedbacks as well as audio information by means of a bone-conductive speakers. Compared to most approaches with similar purposes, even in the current prototype arrangement deployed for testing, our system is extremely compact, lightweight and energy efficient thus enabling hours of safe and autonomous navigation with standard batteries avoiding the need to carry cumbersome devices. Moreover, by conceiving the 3D sensing device as a replacement of standard glasses typically worn by visually impaired people and by using intuitive feedbacks provided by means of lightweight actuators, our system provides an ergonomic and comfortable user interface with a fast learning curve for its effective deployment. This fact has been extensively verified on the field by means of an experimental evaluation, in indoor as well as in outdoor environments, with different users simulating visual impairment including a blind person.
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