Wearing Vision: a Smart Assistive Wearable System for the Visually Impaired

Background

According to the World Health Organization, approximately 285 million people worldwide are visually impaired, with China having the highest number—accounting for about 18% of the global total. Despite advancements in accessibility, blind and visually impaired individuals still face significant barriers in their daily lives, particularly in navigation, reading, and social participation. Currently available assistive tools—such as white canes and guide dogs—offer only limited support and often restrict the user’s independence. Technological solutions for the blind are underdeveloped and lack personalization, interactivity, and multifunctional integration. In response to these challenges, this project explores how wearable technology can improve the quality of life for visually impaired individuals by enhancing mobility, communication, and learning access.

Why I Conducted This Research

This project began with a deep sense of social responsibility and empathy. During my visits to several massage parlors operated by blind individuals in Xi’an, I had in-depth conversations with them about their everyday experiences, challenges, and needs. These interactions profoundly moved me and made me realize how underrepresented and underserved this community is in the field of design and technology. I saw a clear opportunity to apply design thinking and engineering to develop assistive tools that could help restore autonomy and dignity to their lives. By combining practical research, field investigation, and iterative prototyping, I aimed to design a wearable system that not only supports mobility but also bridges the gap in communication and information access for blind users. This project is not only a design exploration, but also a step toward inclusivity and equal opportunity.

The blind will encounter many difficulties when they go out, so they can only work near their residences and go out with others. What’s more, if individuals go out, they have to rely on their blind sticks or guide dogs to lead the way. The world’s blind people account for five thousandths of the world’s population, and China has the most blind people, ac- counting for 18%. Besides, they can only work in certain and limited areas as masseuses, tuners, and telephone customer service and so on. So I started to act. I visited a number of massage parlors for the blind in Xi’an to investigate and analyze their thoughts and ask for their demands. During the investigation and conversation, my idea got clearer and my goals became clearer. Through research, we know that people with visual impairment will encounter many difficulties in their daily life, but there are not many tools that can serve them.

I considered this design from three aspects,namely wheelchair for the blind, assistive device for guide dogs and blind canes. In brainstorm are some of my thoughts on interviewing the blind, and questions I want to ask. In the hand-drawing, I made the gloves more sporty and thinner because the gloves will reduce the sense of touch of the blind to a limited extent. In the legs of glasses, I drew bone conduction headphones, and about the glasses, I adopted a round design and a more curved frame, so the overall glasses look very sleek. In this way, the feel and vision in use will be more comfortable. And from the perspective of aesthetics, rounded corners can narrow the distance between the blind and others since people will maintain a certain distance from sharp or hard things, resulting in a sense of vigilance. However, such design can protect them in some extent.

In the model making, at first, I determined that the models are gloves and glasses, then I drew three views, and next I purchased materials, hot melt glue, solar panels, circuit boards, punching ma-chines, sandpaper and so on. In the production of glasses, I used a drilling machine to select a hole on the side of the glasses to install the infrared scanning system. I bought a camera for a mobile phone and glued it in the middle of the glasses as the camera of the glasses and then I glued it on the side of the glasses. A circuit board works as the CPU of the eye.

In the glove making, I cut the finger cover part of the glove into two sections, and then used needle and thread to re-stitch the finger part. A solar panel is attached to the glove, and there are six infrared scans on the solar panel, which can accurately detect obstacles from all directions. There are five thick wires connecting the glove’s CPU and the fingertips, so that the information obtained by the glove can be wirelessly trans- mitted to the bone conduction earphones of the glasses.

Smart glasses for blind people. I thought of com- bining the bone conduction part of the headset with the temples to give new functions to the old objects. The voice from the reading scanner and the voice from the laser rangefinder can pass through the headset in time. Feedback to the blind.

Smart glove for the blind, I added a ranging system. In order to measure the distance accurately, we took laser ranging.Change the direction to realize straight line ranging or sector scanning ranging, and you can broadcast the distance of the roadblock through the headset to remind the user at any time.

Secondly, it is the function of the reader, which is to add some braille dots on the belly of the fingers.

I used the principle of the scanning pen in the"BBK tutoring machine" to miniaturize it, and finally fixed the scanning head on the back of the index finger, which would not hinder the original function of the finger, but also facilitate the blind finger reading and identification. The scanning head will use infrared rays to convert the scanned optical signal into an electronic signal and store it in the memory, and then identify it through the OCR technology inside, and finally transmit it to the headset or the wire-less bone conduction headset built in the glasses through voice Bluetooth for voice playback. By doing that, the blind user can also acquire knowledge in words like normal people. In addition, I added an alarm system to the gloves. If the roadblock is too close or dangerous, an alarm will be issued, and people around can obtain the information and deliver help. I hope this product de- sign can effectively help blind people live a normal life, can go shopping and travel like the ordinary people, and can be treated equally.