Project description
Innovative headset to empower the visually impaired
Blindness and vision impairment greatly limit people’s mobility and ability to function comfortably in society. The EU-funded PANDA Guide project aims to provide the visually impaired with the means to navigate, socialise and confidently engage in daily activities. It will develop a wearable multifunctional headset, fitted with cameras and sensors. The cameras capture images of the environment that are then translated into haptic feedbacks and voice instructions (via built-in speakers) to the wearer. This will enable users to engage with their environment while maintaining the ability to hear audible sounds. The headset will enhance the quality of life for the visually impaired and will be fully adaptable to future software applications.
Objective
Visual impairment entails various risks making people experiencing difficulties leaving the security of their homes which results in vicious circles. Sight loss is linked to increased risk of depression, reduced quality of life, declining physical health, decreased mobility, higher rates of poverty than in the general population. Visually impaired people face various challenges in their daily lives ranging from navigation outside well-known environments, engaging relationships, practicing a profession or even accessing modern technology mainly based on touchscreens.
ESTHESIX was officially founded in 02/2017 by a complementary team experienced in entrepreneurship, AI and electronical engineering. We believe everyone deserves to see and therefore we are developing a ground-breaking wearable technology called “PANDA Guide” which will allow all visually impaired (partially sighted people + blind people) to navigate, to socialize and to engage in all daily life activities.
PANDA will disrupt the market by offering a multifunctional device that not only provides navigation guidance, but help to learn, earn a living, socialize and have fun. PANDA is multifunctional headset to be placed around the neck with a discreet earpiece. The camera captures the surrounding environment in full 3D and images are converted into intuitive sounds (abstract sounds and semantic speech) transmitted via bone conduction. Our headset has already been validated by over 200 visually impaired people. PANDA is a medical device fully open to the development of third-party software which will have the opportunity to imagine various new uses for our headset.
SME Instrument will allow to rise up expectations to have visually impaired people live better, think wider and achieve further. PANDA will provide evidences that visually impaired people can have outstanding jobs and achieve critical missions by carrying out a stunning blow: launching the first Panda-assisted blind astronaut to Space by 2024!
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/euroscivoc.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/euroscivoc.
- natural sciencescomputer and information sciencesinternetinternet of things
- engineering and technologyelectrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineeringelectronic engineeringsensorsoptical sensors
- social scienceseconomics and businessbusiness and managemententrepreneurship
- agricultural sciencesanimal and dairy sciencedomestic animals
- natural sciencescomputer and information sciencessoftwaresoftware applicationssimulation software
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Keywords
Programme(s)
Call for proposal
(opens in new window) H2020-EIC-SMEInst-2018-2020
See other projects for this callSub call
H2020-SMEInst-2018-2020-1
Funding Scheme
SME-1 - SME instrument phase 1Coordinator
95800 Cergy
France
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.