Concept and Design of SEES (Smart Environment Explorer Stick) for Visually Impaired Person Mobility Assistance

With the advent of robot companion concept, the independent mobility became one of the hottest problem in general, and allows make progress on the independent mobility of the Visually Impaired Person (VIP). Today, this latter is based mainly on two elements: the white stick and VIPs memory. However, the feedback provided by a white cane, even an enhanced one (a smart stick), is not adequate to the principle of autonomy and to the growing complexity of our cities. Therefore, new capabilities such as orientation and space awareness should be acquired by VIP. The first prototype of SEES (SEE-stick and SEE-phone) is presented in this paper. This paper: (1) introduces concepts of orientation and space awareness, (2) outlines the architecture of the SEES (Smart Environment Explorer Stick), an enhanced white cane, which assists the VIP's to acquire orientation and space awareness capabilities, and (3) discusses the SEES possible implementation (SEES hardware and software first prototype).