Undergraduates in Vietnam make multi-purpose glasses for blind

A pair of glasses that can assist the visually impaired in various daily tasks has been developed by a group of college students from Da Nang City in central Vietnam.

Le Nhat Hung, Nguyen Tran Viet Chuong, and Nguyen Manh Tuan, students at Duy Tan University in Da Nang, have spent the past year developing a new type of eyewear for the visually impaired, giving them new opportunity to live life to the fullest.

The glasses went through four different beta versions before emerging as a success.

Since beginning the project last April, the team has spent a fortune in time and money on sensor and positioning systems as well as electronic compasses, all of which had to be shipped from abroad due to a lack of availability in Vietnam, Hung said.

"It was painful to see these expensive pieces of equipment destroyed during some of our failed test runs," he confessed.

It was not until February that their fourth and most recent version of the glasses tested successfully.

“At the moment, our multi-purpose glasses can help the visually impaired perform a number of daily tasks. Wearers can use the glasses to assist with movement, read without learning Braille, identify everyday objects, inform themselves of their current location, and check the time or make phone calls via voice interaction,” Hung elaborated. “In the future, we also plan to include a handwriting recognition feature, which will make learning to read and write a lot easier.”

The glasses weigh about 300g and feature an integrated camera connected to a central processor worn at the hips. They also include an overhead band to take pressure off the wearer’s ears, a microphone for voice recognition, and an infrared sensor to identify obstacles in the user’s path.

The device uses a monitoring system that can recognize voices, check the battery, and connect the central processor with peripheral devices, like the speaker, before returning results to the wearer.

“The whole process was tested on 30 volunteers from a local center for the visually impaired and the results were extraordinary. The glasses functioned smoothly on all of our testers and caused no discomfort,” Nguyen Tran Viet Chuong said cheerfully.

Now that the glasses are complete, the trio find themselves faced with the challenge of making the device readily available at an affordable price to every blind person.

While their glasses are considerably cheaper than other foreign-produced eyewear for the blind, at US$400, a single pair is still a small fortune for many blind Vietnamese, Nguyen Manh Tuan said.

A similar but more advanced device produced by Canada-based eSight Corporation is priced at US$15,000, over 37 times more expensive than the trio’s glasses.

“We are still calling for funding from social organizations,” the three confessed. “Once used in real life, the device has the potential to provide significant assistance for visually impaired people across the country.”

Dang Ngoc Sy, deputy director at the Center of Electrical Engineering of Duy Tan University, who is the supervisor and instructor of the developing team, asserted that this device is useful for blind people in Vietnam and throughout the world.

“We are getting ready to put the device into use at some centers for the blind in Da Nang, after which we will continue research and push for a wider distribution of the product,” Sy said.

Before joining the project, Hung was involved in an initiative to develop solar-powered traffic lights that could capture photos of traffic law violators and give warnings about traffic jams.

(Source: TTO)