A comparative study of wireless communication protocols in a computer vision system for improving the autonomy of the visually impaired

Abstract

The latest advancements in computer vision have enabled the development of new applications in numerous scientific and technological fields. The program "e-Vision" builds on these advancements with the aim to improve the autonomy of people with visual impairment by means of visual recognition and audio feedback. This is achieved by a set of sensors, properly embedded to a pair of glasses for capturing visual information and for transmitting auditory feedback messages. Appropriate software running on a mobile device (smartphone) is responsible for transmitting and receiving the audio and visual information to and from the sensors. This paper presents a comparative study of relevant wireless communication protocols that could be implemented for the communication of the sensors with the smart mobile device. The application demands certain criteria to be met, regarding data transmission rates, transmission range, and power consumption. The current study focuses on the comparison of the numerous existing wireless communication protocols. It is shown that Bluetooth and WiFi are the most advantageous in order to implement the audio and visual data transmission respectively.