Kayhan et al., A Wearable Haptic Guidance System Based on Skin Stretch , IEEE Haptics Symposium 2022
Channel: IEEE Haptics Symposium
Date: 2022-03-15

O. Kayhan, E. Samur, A Wearable Haptic Guidance System Based on Skin Stretch around the Waist for Visually-Impaired Runners, Proceedings of IEEE Haptics Symposium 2022
Abstract: Visually-impaired people have difficulties to move around in unknown environments. It is even more challenging to do sports such as running. In this study, a wearable haptic guidance system has been developed that can help visuallyimpaired people to navigate on lanes of any running track individually without requiring external help. The system uses an RGB-D camera and a microcontroller to detect the lanes and to calculate steering angles for navigation. A skin stretch method is used to transfer the steering angles to the user as haptic feedback around the waist. Two user tests were conducted with four participants (one visually-impaired and three able-bodied volunteers) in order to evaluate the proposed system. In the first test, the participants were asked to identify the given haptic feedback on their waist while standing still. In the second test, the system as a whole was evaluated by asking the participants to run the 400 metres on a lane of a standard outdoor running track with the help of the haptic guidance system. The ablebodied participants were blindfolded during the tests. Number of lane violations, number of directional warnings, and total time of run were recorded. Results show that the participants distinguished steering angles with an accuracy of 83.3 %. The participants were also able to complete the 400 metres with reduced lane violations and directional warnings than the reference runs performed without the haptic guidance. Considering these results, we can conclude that the proposed haptic guidance system is a promising tool for visually-impaired individuals who wants to run on a running track alone.
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