Using light to facilitate the mobility of low vision people

Abstract : Two thirds of the low vision population are over the age of 50 and were not concerned by any visual deficiency when they were younger. The predominant concerns of the largest part of such a population are the loss of independence and the ability to perform simple activities of everyday life. With a clear lack of efficient visual aids, one urgent challenge is to design and to develop new approaches to facilitate the vision rehabilitation, the mobility and the socioeconomic independence of people that have to face a visual impairment inducing major changes in their life. Within this framework, we investigated the influence of lighting-based edge enhancement techniques on the autonomous mobility of visually impaired people.