Helping People with Visual Impairment to Find Use Buses through Computer Vision

In this 8-weeks challenge, 35 collaborators worked on solving a significant daily-life mobility & orientation challenge for people with visual impairment using Computer Vision.

The problem

People with visual impairment face an enormous amount of challenges daily. One of the biggest challenges is in orientation & mobility – the ability to walk safely and accurately from point A to point B.

Public transportation, such as buses, is the main tool for individuals to navigate and get to where they want. In this challenge, together with RenewSenses, an Israeli company developing assistive technologies for people who are blind, we will assist people with visual impairment in their experience of catching a bus. 

Results from this challenge will be directly tested with people with visual impairment through pilots the company is conducting – enabling fast feedback and creating a highly meaningful challenge that will impact the daily-life independence of many.

The project results

In a span of two months, our team successfully created an automated Computer Vision pipeline capable of detecting buses, bus lines, and empty seats. Our team made use of innovative ethical data collection techniques, data annotations using CVAT, image preprocessing, model implementation, mobile testing, and GPU deployment with Docker.

Over 35 dedicated individuals collaborated to develop this technology, driven by the goal of improving the quality of life for those with visual impairment.