People with hearing or sight impairments will have the opportunity to independently orient themselves in space and independent living. The Russian company "Business Bureau" has created a system that converts video and audio information about the environment into another kind - for example, in the Braille alphabet.

The multi-channel sensory information processing project for people with hearing and vision impairments won a grant of 15 million rubles from the Innovation Support Fund for the Development-NTI competition.

The Russian company "Business Bureau" is working on a system for processing multi-channel sensory information for people with hearing and vision impaired. The hardware and software complex consists of two components: an information capture unit (equipped with a video camera and a microphone) and a data processing unit. The main goal of the system is to give disabled people with simultaneous hearing and visual impairment the possibility of independent orientation and independent living. The resulting video and audio information is analyzed and transmitted to the computing platform, where it is recoded into text. The system allows you to recognize surrounding objects - obstacles, road signs, buildings, as well as important for people sounds, for example, alarm signals in emergency situations.

Pavel Gudkov, Deputy Director General of the Innovation Promotion Foundation, told Izvestia that the project uses sensory replacement technology.

- Information that a person with disabilities can not receive with the help of one of the sense organs, "recoded" and is perceived with the use of other organs. For example, with loss of vision, visual information can be recorded by the camera and converted to sound, or speech or sounds can be transmitted by vibration," - he explained.

Artashes Sarafaslanyan, one of the two co-founders of the Business Bureau, told Izvestia that the minimum system would cost 30,000 rubles. Its weight is not expected to exceed 500 grams: "Until the end of 2018, the final samples of the device will have to appear".

Alexander Neumyvakin, president of the All-Russian Society of the Blind (ARS), told Izvestia that for people with limited hearing and vision, any device that makes life easier for them is important.

- All devices are tested by a special commission for utility. There is a list of devices, the purchase of which is subsidized by the state. If this device is found useful, it can be included in this list," - the president of the ARS added.

According to Neumyvakin, there already exist devices that voice the invalid to the sight of the name or description of the buildings surrounding them on the street. But at the same time special relays are attached to the buildings, which transmit the signal to the user device. When the button is clicked, the device owner receives an audio message.

The president of Cognitive Technology Olga Uskova noted that the market for such devices as the development of the "Business Bureau" should form the state. If such systems are not maintained at the state level, they will not be able to survive.

- The task that is put before this system for recognizing objects is mathematically solved, and therefore, its creation is possible. But the total cost of the entire system is quite high. If there is no state support, this development will remain an expensive toy, which few will be able to buy, - said Olga Uskova. - If the state or large medical organizations support the purchase of such systems, they can be seriously in demand.

Systems for recognizing images, buildings, cars, people, road signs and marking are actively used in the creation of unmanned vehicles and other equipment. As Izvestia wrote, an unmanned tractor equipped with a computer vision system first went out to work in the fields in Tatarstan.

In a message to the Federal Assembly on December 4, 2014, Russian President Vladimir Putin called the National Technology Initiative (STI) one of the priorities of state policy. Within the framework of the "Development-NTI" competition there is a selection of projects in which it is planned to invest money allocated by the state.