High-tech glasses help visually-impaired athlete
‘Welcome Dream Glasses’ to be Han’s eyes at Athens Marathon
I feel that information offered by the glasses has become much more diverse and accurate.
Han Dong-ho had dreamed of becoming an oriental medicine doctor, but had to change his plans as Leber hereditary optic neuropathy caused him to go almost completely blind when he was studying at an oriental medical school.
The 33-year-old, however, did not let it defeat him. He decided to become an athlete, and finally managed to become a swimmer who represented Korea in various sporting events for people with physical disabilities, including the 2016 Summer Paralympics held in Rio de Janeiro.
He has since kept challenging himself to compete in other events such as cycling and triathlon.
Now, he is ready for the fresh challenge of finishing a full marathon at the Athens Classic Marathon, which will be held Nov. 10.
Han will run the marathon without the aid of a guide runner, a person who supports blind or visually-impaired runners by guiding and running alongside them.
Han will instead wear “Welcome Dream Glasses,” the world’s first wearable devices for the visually impaired, to complete the full marathon course on his own.
The high-tech wearable devices have been developed through the “Run for Dream” project, a social contribution program run by Welcome Savings Bank.
“This is the first time I’ve challenged myself to finish a full marathon course,” Han said in a recent interview with The Korea Times.
“As running a marathon was something I’ve always wanted to do, I applied for the Run for Dream project.”
Han is the first visually-impaired runner who will use a wearable device to help him navigate the course of an international marathon.
If he successfully finishes the full course, he will also grab the title of world’s first visually-impaired runner to complete a marathon without a guide runner.
The Welcome Dream Glasses consist of a body suit and glasses with a built-in RGB cam.
The glasses collect the visual information, while the GPS in the body suit tracks the location of the wearer with a margin of error of less than one centimeter.
The collected information is translated into sounds, informing the runner about routes, obstacles, surface conditions and giving directions.
The sounds are varied, ranging from alarm sounds, which occur when the runner comes close to people or obstacles, to voices giving information about curves in roads ahead or roads with uneven surfaces.
With this auditory information, the wearer can keep themselves on the track and navigate on their own.
“For the past two months, I have gone through intensive training for the marathon. I have noticed improvement in my energy level and stamina.” Han said.
“Recently, I ran 33 kilometers. I believe I will be able to finish the full marathon course for sure.”
Last month, he participated in the half-marathon race for people with physical disabilities in Seoul, wearing the Welcome Dream Glasses, in a bid to get used to using the device.
Han said a guide runner plays a big role by running with the competing athlete and offering a variety of information such as the remaining distance.
He noted the Welcome Dream Glasses, at first, offered limited information, but have since evolved into technology that can replace the guide runner.
“I feel that information offered by the Welcome Dream Glasses has become much more diverse and accurate,” he said.
New white cane for the blind
Kwon Young-gwan, a director who heads the ICT Service Department at Welcome Savings Bank, said the Welcome Dream Glasses is the results of cooperation with various partners including KAIST.
“Welcome Savings Bank possesses a wide range of Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies such as big data, machine learning and artificial intelligence,” Kwon said during the interview. “We thought about how our technologies can be used to help people who are blind or visually impaired, and this idea has led to the development of the Welcome Dream Glasses.”
Kwon, a big data specialist, said it took about five months to develop the high-tech wearable glasses, noting that eight researchers from the bank cooperated with The Cream Union specializing in digital technologies, among others.
KAIST took charge of offering technical advice and verifying the feasibility of the project.
Welcome Savings Bank offers its servers for the devices’ stable data transmission and reception.
“When data collected by the glasses are sent to our servers, the servers analyze this and transmit the results to the device in real time,” Kwon said. “As the amount of data transmitted and received is huge, it was difficult to analyze it with CPUs, thus we use GPUs.”
Kwon noted that there have already been many devices utilizing object recognition or GPS technologies, but this is the first time in the world that a wearable device integrated with those technologies has been developed for people who are blind or visually impaired.
Though the Welcome Dream Glasses have been developed only for Han for now, the devices could come into wide use in the not-so-distant future, becoming an alternative to a white cane for the blind, Kwon noted.
“In order to supply the devices to the blind in general, we may need to carry out many more tests, and create audio signals that can enter into general use, like sign language for the hearing-impaired,” he said.
“We will also need to check out related communications technologies so the devices can work well even in emergency situations that the blind could face in their daily life. But I do not think it would take a long time as it took only five months to develop the Welcome Dream Glasses.”