A mobile phone system to find crosswalks for visually impaired pedestrians

Urban intersections are the most dangerous parts of a blind or visually impaired pedestrian's travel. A prerequisite for safely crossing an intersection is entering the crosswalk in the right direction and avoiding the danger of straying outside the crosswalk. This paper presents a proof of concept system that seeks to provide such alignment information. The system consists of a standard mobile phone with built-in camera that uses computer vision algorithms to detect any crosswalk visible in the camera's field of view; audio feedback from the phone then helps the user align him/herself to it. Our prototype implementation on a Nokia mobile phone runs in about one second per image, and is intended for eventual use in a mobile phone system that will aid blind and visually impaired pedestrians in navigating traffic intersections.