Application on character recognition system on road sign for visually impaired: case study approach and future

Abstract

Many visually impaired people worldwide are unable to travel safely and autonomously because they are physically unable to perceive effective visual information during their daily lives. In this research, we study how to extract the character information of the road sign and transmit it to the visually impaired effectively, so they can understand easier. Experimental method is to apply the Maximally Stable External Region and Stroke Width Transform method in Phase I so that the visually impaired person can recognize the letters on the road signs. It is to convey text information to the disabled. The result of Phase I using samples of simple road signs was to extract the sign information after dividing the exact character area, but the accuracy was not good for the Hangul (Korean characters) information. The initial experimental results in the Phase II succeeded in transmitting the text information on Phase I to the visually impaired. In the future, it will be required to develop a wearable character recognition system that can be attached to the visually impaired. In order to perform this task, we need to develop and verify a miniaturized and wearable character recognition system. In this paper, we examined the method of recognizing road sign characters on the road and presented a possibility that may be applicable to our final development.