Abstract
The number of accidents involving elderly individuals has been increasing with the increase of the aging population, posing increasingly serious challenges. Most accidents are caused by reduced judgment and physical abilities, which lead to severe consequences. Therefore, studies on support systems for elderly and visually impaired people to improve the safety and quality of daily life are attracting considerable attention. In this study, a road surface condition distinction method using reflection intensities obtained by an ultrasonic sensor was proposed. The proposed method was applied to movement support systems for elderly and visually impaired individuals to detect dangerous road surfaces and give an alarm. The method did not perform well in previous studies of puddle detection, because the alert provided by the method did not enable users to avoid puddles. This study extended the method proposed by previous studies with respect to puddle detection ability. The findings indicate the effectiveness of the proposed method by considering four road surface conditions. The proposed method could detect puddle conditions. The effectiveness of the proposed method was verified in all four conditions, since users could differentiate between road surface conditions and classify the conditions as either safe or dangerous.
Highlights
There has been a rapid increase in the number of elderly individuals worldwide, and the problem of an aging society has become severe in recent years
The results indicated that the proposed method was a useful road surface condition distinction method that could be applied in movement support systems, and was effective in helping elderly and visually impaired individuals avoid accidents, such as falling
The first type of ultrasonic sensor is an active type, which detects the reflection of ultrasonic waves sent by the sensor itself
Summary
There has been a rapid increase in the number of elderly individuals worldwide, and the problem of an aging society has become severe in recent years. Accidents involving elderly individuals, caused by reduced judgement and physical abilities, have increased. Accidents involving visually impaired individuals have increased, posing a social problem. Movement support systems are necessary to improve the safety of elderly and visually impaired people in their daily lives. Individuals moving without the help of a caretaker face a high risk of accidents (such as falling), despite using movement support systems. The applications of an active type of ultrasonic sensor include range finders, fish-finders, fathometers, sonars, and medical diagnosis devices. The other type of ultrasonic sensor is passive, which only receive ultrasonic waves. They are applied in detecting leaks in gas pipes and water pipes and in detecting corona discharges owing to insulation failure. This study involved the examination of an aerial ultrasonic sensor
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