Keynote Lecture

Tyflos : A Wearable System-Prototype for Assisting Visually Impaired

Dr. Nikolaos G. Bourbakis
Director, Information Technology Research Institute
Wright State University
College of Engineering and Computer Science
OBR Distinguished Professor of Information Technology
Department of Computer Science and Engineering
3640 Colonel Glenn Highway
Dayton, Ohio 45435-0001
United States of America

Phone: (937) 775-5138
Fax: (937) 775-5127


E-mail: nikolaos.bourbakis@wright.edu
URL: http://www.cs.wright.edu/itri/bourbakis/
 

Abstract: Human eyes receive more than 75% of the total information accessible to the human senses.
“There are approximately 45 million blind individuals world-wide according to the World Health Report. Vision loss can be very traumatic, leading to frustration and depression. According to the American Foundation for the Blind (AFB), the rate of unemployment among legally blind individuals of working age residing in the United States (58%) is much greater than that of individuals with no functional limitations (18%). Employment opportunities and independence are scarce for visually impaired individuals. This is unfortunate in view of the fact that ingenious devices [IEEE Spectrum] and information technology (IT) strategies can be developed to help people overcome these barriers and to pursue educational opportunities that will allow them to become productive members of society.”

In this talk technological efforts are presented that have the same goal assisting and increasing the visual impaired people’s independence in their working and living environment, and reducing their social neglect ness. In particular, the research effort (called Tyflos) is presented here that is an IT- based wearable system-prototype. It consists of a pair of dark glasses on which two tiny vision cameras, an ear speaker and a microphone are attached. The cameras are connected with a portable computer that carries intelligent software programs. The cameras, under the user’s command, capture images from the surrounding and convert them via software programs into audio or vibrations. The current versions of Tyflos is used as 1) a reader by reading books or the blind user via audio conversion and 2) a navigation by converting 3D images into vibrations for navigation.



Brief Biography of the Speaker:
Nikolaos G. BOURBAKIS (IEEE Fellow) received his PhD in computer engineering and informatics in 1983. He currently is the Associate Dean for Engineering Research, a Distinguished Professor of Informatics and the Director of the ATR Center at WSU. He has directed several research projects (Applied AI, Image Processing & Machine Vision, Visual Autonomous Navigation, Information Security, Bio-Informatics, Biomedical Engineering) funded by government and industry, and he has published near 300 papers in International refereed Journals, Conference proceedings and book-chapters. Previous working places: SUNY, IBM, UP, GMU. He is actively involved as an Associate Editor in several IEEE and International Journals and General Chair in numerous International IEEE Conferences. He is the EIC of the Artificial Intelligence Tools Int. Journal (WSP) and the new upcoming Bioinformatics Engineering Journal. He is an IEEE Computer Society Distinguished Speaker, and NSF University Research Programs Evaluator, an IEEE Computer Society Golden Core Member. He has received several high prestigious awards, some of them are: IBM Author recognition Award 1991, IEEE Computer Society Outstanding Contribution Award 1992, IEEE Outstanding Paper Award ATC 1994, IEEE Computer Society Technical Research Achievement Award 1998, IEEE I&S Outstanding Leadership Award 1998, IEEE ICTAI 10 years Research Contribution Award 1999, IEEE BIBE Leadership Award 2003, ASC Recognition Award 2005.