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Main Authors: Chavan, Kunal, Balaji, Keertan, Barigidad, Spoorti, Chiluveru, Samba Raju
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.16488
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author Chavan, Kunal
Balaji, Keertan
Barigidad, Spoorti
Chiluveru, Samba Raju
author_facet Chavan, Kunal
Balaji, Keertan
Barigidad, Spoorti
Chiluveru, Samba Raju
contents With an increasing demand for assistive technologies that promote the independence and mobility of visually impaired people, this study suggests an innovative real-time system that gives audio descriptions of a user's surroundings to improve situational awareness. The system acquires live video input and processes it with a quantized and fine-tuned Florence-2 big model, adjusted to 4-bit accuracy for efficient operation on low-power edge devices such as the NVIDIA Jetson Orin Nano. By transforming the video signal into frames with a 5-frame latency, the model provides rapid and contextually pertinent descriptions of objects, pedestrians, and barriers, together with their estimated distances. The system employs Parler TTS Mini, a lightweight and adaptable Text-to-Speech (TTS) solution, for efficient audio feedback. It accommodates 34 distinct speaker types and enables customization of speech tone, pace, and style to suit user requirements. This study examines the quantization and fine-tuning techniques utilized to modify the Florence-2 model for this application, illustrating how the integration of a compact model architecture with a versatile TTS component improves real-time performance and user experience. The proposed system is assessed based on its accuracy, efficiency, and usefulness, providing a viable option to aid vision-impaired users in navigating their surroundings securely and successfully.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2503_16488
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle VocalEyes: Enhancing Environmental Perception for the Visually Impaired through Vision-Language Models and Distance-Aware Object Detection
Chavan, Kunal
Balaji, Keertan
Barigidad, Spoorti
Chiluveru, Samba Raju
Human-Computer Interaction
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Machine Learning
With an increasing demand for assistive technologies that promote the independence and mobility of visually impaired people, this study suggests an innovative real-time system that gives audio descriptions of a user's surroundings to improve situational awareness. The system acquires live video input and processes it with a quantized and fine-tuned Florence-2 big model, adjusted to 4-bit accuracy for efficient operation on low-power edge devices such as the NVIDIA Jetson Orin Nano. By transforming the video signal into frames with a 5-frame latency, the model provides rapid and contextually pertinent descriptions of objects, pedestrians, and barriers, together with their estimated distances. The system employs Parler TTS Mini, a lightweight and adaptable Text-to-Speech (TTS) solution, for efficient audio feedback. It accommodates 34 distinct speaker types and enables customization of speech tone, pace, and style to suit user requirements. This study examines the quantization and fine-tuning techniques utilized to modify the Florence-2 model for this application, illustrating how the integration of a compact model architecture with a versatile TTS component improves real-time performance and user experience. The proposed system is assessed based on its accuracy, efficiency, and usefulness, providing a viable option to aid vision-impaired users in navigating their surroundings securely and successfully.
title VocalEyes: Enhancing Environmental Perception for the Visually Impaired through Vision-Language Models and Distance-Aware Object Detection
topic Human-Computer Interaction
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.16488