ABSTRACT
In the existing walking support system, the range of detection is limited, and it is very difficult to detect obstacles such as a step or a hollow. Therefore, we aim at the development of a new walking support system for a visually-impaired person detecting neighboring obstacles by making use of a smartphone which is a high-performance portable information terminal. In this study, we have developed a walking support system combining the orientation sensor of the smartphone and a small distance sensor at the first stage. When we investigated its precision in detecting an obstacle, it was found that the system could detect obstacles which disturbed the walking of a visually-impaired person such as a step and a wall. We will find an appropriate key to detection to improve the detection precision of the system and make further improvements in the system by trial experiments in the future.
