SUBHASH MISHRA
Dhanbad, July 16: A team of IIT Indian School of Mines (ISM) Dhanbad faculty has been working on developing ‘Smart Glasses’ to help visually impaired persons walk free. The project is called ‘Ultra Low Power Neuromorphic Spiking Architecture, Assertive Smart Glasses.’
The developed Smart Glasses (sensor-enabled audio system) would give prior information to blind people if any object comes on their path.
The six-member team under Prof Rajeev Ranjan Kumar, associate professor of the electronics engineering department, has been given this ambitious project to complete in five years under the Government of India’s programme.
Other faculty members of this project are assistant professors Manodipan Sahu, Kaushik Mazumdar, Rahul Bhattacharya, Sajal K Paul and Jitendra Kumar. The IIT ISM team was given the project during Digital India Week held at Gandhinagar from July 4 to 9.
Giving details of the device, Prof Rajeev Ranjan Kumar said that the system is being used in generating smarter machines that can sense and perceive.
Shedding light on the aim and objective of developing the system, Prof Ranjan said that as per a WHO report, more than one billion people in the world have vision difficulties which include blindness, low vision and some kind of visual impairment.
“Most of the blind people and those with vision difficulties are not in a position to complete their studies as a special school for them is not available everywhere. If it is available, it is private and expensive,” said Prof Ranjan.
He further added that such people have the only alternative to studying at home to get basic knowledge from their parents. Since their parents do have not enough technical support as per requirement, they fail to compete with their affluent counterparts in education.
“Such people need to be provided special facilities so that they can live comfortably. The project ‘Ultra Low Power Neuromorphic Spiking Architecture, Assertive Smart Glasses’ would cater to their requirements,” he said.
