AppGuide: um sistema vestível para pessoas com deficiência visual

Abstract

Vision is the organ responsible for 80% of the information acquired by the human being. The absence of vision causes incalculable damage to daily life, included, ambulation, identification of colors, the perception of luminosity and ambient temperature. Although there are numerous prototypes and products available to the visually impaired, none of them are economically viable and do not bring together various resources. In this context, the aim of this study was to develop a wearable system (AppGuide) consisting of a bracelet with several sensors and a smartphone application. For this proposition, a plastic structure bracelet printed in the 3D printer was developed, containing an Arduino Nanoplate, ultrasonic sensor, gyroscope, accelerometer, color sensing sensor, a light dependent resistor for the luminosity function and a sensor to inform at room temperature. The bracelet captures information from the environment, processes it, and sends it to an application on the smartphone. The application handles the information by relaying it to the user via audio. The application was developed on the App Inventor platform for the Android operating system. To analyze the functionality of the system, it was used the systems usability scale and a controlled environment with eight tasks (free course and obstacle course taking turns between the walking stick and AppGuide, spatial information of obstacles, color, luminosity, and temperature) with six visually impaired of both genres. It was observed that the system answered the accuracy of the information of luminosity, color, and temperature with an accuracy of 100%, while for free path 89% and with obstacle 80%. For the spatial information of the obstacles, there was the precision of the system of 90%. The System Usability Scale score was 68.67, demonstrating that the system may be of fast learning. It is concluded that AppGuide is functional and guides navigation in the environment in an intelligent and sensitive way for visually impaired, and may be extended the effectiveness with a longer period of adaptation of the visually impaired with the system.