Arabic Reading Machine for Visually Impaired People Using TTS and OCR

This paper suggests a standalone Arabic Reading Machine using TTS (Text-to-speech) and OCR (Optical Character Recognition) software built in a user friendly way for Visually Impaired People. In the Arab world, the assistive reading technology for visually impaired people use either computer or mobile phone software, which both require the help of another person. The type of reading machines has already been developed for Latin languages and research about it has been very active since the mid 1950´s. An important progress has been made, and many reading machines now provide smooth and reliable speech. Although, reading machines are the most visually impaired friendly reading assistive devices, since their hardware is specifically designed for visually impaired people, they are not yet commercialized for Arabic as it requires further work on the integration of two different systems, namely OCR (Optical Character Recognition) and TTS (Text-to-speech) systems. To answer this issue an Arabic standalone reading machine designed specifically for visually impaired people with convenient control is suggested. Also, the system of existing Latin reading machines is analyzed in details, along with existing OCR and TTS software.