Converting spatial information to haptic and auditory feedback

Abstract

A life-assisting system to enhance the quality of life for people with visual impairment. The system integrates state-of-the-art sensing and sensory stimulation with light detection and ranging (LiDAR), machine learning, and advanced haptic navigation to provide the visually impaired population with a real-time haptic map of the three-dimensional environment and auditory descriptions of objects within that environment. By allowing the visually impaired population to sense objects in the surrounding environment through haptic and auditory feedback, the disclosed system has the potential to promote individual independence, reduce anxiety and stress, facilitate access to educational and employment opportunities, and reduce social and economic gaps. To provide those benefits, the system uses multi-modal learning to convert higher dimensional (e.g., four-dimensional) scene data into lower dimensional (e.g., one-dimensional) auditory data and (e.g., two- or three-dimensional) haptic data.