A wireless assistive device for visually-impaired persons using tongue electrotactile system

People with low and lost vision are increasingly independent nowadays; besides, more and more resources and facilities have been developed to enable them adapt to daily life in an active way. Based on the idea of sensory substitution and the electrotactile stimulation on the tongue, a wireless small device was studied and designed in order to aid the visually-impaired people in getting more perception of their surrounding environment. The device was also fabricated and tested with normal people to understand the sensibility of human tongue in achieving the information from the device. With wireless part, the device is totally able to communicate with the host system and receive the command to help users perceive and direct in the environment.