The document proposes a wearable device that uses vibration to help blind people perceive colors. It consists of an Arduino, color sensor, and vibrating disc. Tests on blindfolded people accurately identified primary and secondary colors via vibration, with little to no training needed. Future work includes testing on blind/visually impaired individuals and creating a portable version to validate the method.

1. 11
Riccardo Cavadini riccardo1.cavadini@mail.polimi.it
Luca Cerina luca.cerina@polimi.it
eNovia
November 15, 2017
Giuseppe Franco giuseppefranco4@gmail.it
Marco D. Santambrogio marco.santambrogio@polimi.it
A Wearable Device for Blind People
to Restore Color Perception

2. 2
Context
1 - http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs282/en/
39 MILLION people in the
world are blind1

3. 2
Context
HandSight dbGLOVE
http://www.dbglove.com/pages/it/benvenutohttp://www.instructables.com/id/HandSight-A-Glove-for-the-Blind-to-Feel-Shapes-an/
1 - http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs282/en/
39 MILLION people in the
world are blind1

4. 3
Problems
HandSight dbGLOVE
• All fingers involved,
invasive
• Brightness and darkness
only, not colors
• All fingers involved,
invasive
• Complex device,
targeting a small set of
people (1.5 million)

5. 4
Our Solution

6. 5
Our Solution
Components:
Arduino MICRO
Grove Color Sensor
Vibrating Disc

7. 6
Our Solution
2 - Ng, Annie WY, and Alan HS Chan. "Finger response times to visual, auditory and tactile modality stimuli." Proceedings of the International MultiConference of Engineers and Computer Scientists. Vol. 2. 2012.

8. 6
Our Solution
It’s been demonstrated that
the response time of haptic
stimuli is shorter than that of
auditory and visual ones2
2 - Ng, Annie WY, and Alan HS Chan. "Finger response times to visual, auditory and tactile modality stimuli." Proceedings of the International MultiConference of Engineers and Computer Scientists. Vol. 2. 2012.

9. 6
Our Solution
It’s been demonstrated that
the response time of haptic
stimuli is shorter than that of
auditory and visual ones2
2 - Ng, Annie WY, and Alan HS Chan. "Finger response times to visual, auditory and tactile modality stimuli." Proceedings of the International MultiConference of Engineers and Computer Scientists. Vol. 2. 2012.
Little to no training required

10. 6
Our Solution
It’s been demonstrated that
the response time of haptic
stimuli is shorter than that of
auditory and visual ones2
2 - Ng, Annie WY, and Alan HS Chan. "Finger response times to visual, auditory and tactile modality stimuli." Proceedings of the International MultiConference of Engineers and Computer Scientists. Vol. 2. 2012.
Little to no training required
Give back a more valuable
information than the color
name only

11. 7
Testing
All tests were performed on 30 blindfolded people
Primary Colors
Secondary Colors
3 tests:
First one with tutorial
Second one after a few minutes
Third one after a week

12. 8
Preliminary Results
Accuracy Total Male Female
Primary 98,69% 99,59% 96,96%
Secondary 94,41% 94,4% 94,23%
2nd test 96,13% 96,93% 94,57%
3rd test 94,11% 97% 90%

13. 9
Future Developments
• Tests on blind and visually impaired people
• Fully portable device
• Method validation

14. Riccardo Cavadini riccardo1.cavadini@mail.polimi.it
Luca Cerina luca.cerina@polimi.it
Giuseppe Franco giuseppefranco4@gmail.it
Marco D. Santambrogio marco.santambrogio@polimi.it
Questions?