A Virtual Reality Platform Simulating Visual Impairment for Testing of Electronic Travel Aids and Performing Orientation and Mobility Training

Plain-language summary

In this study, the study team utilize virtual reality (VR) to simulate visual impairments of different types and severity in healthy subjects. The platform implements three of the most widespread forms of visual impairment in the United States (US): age-related macular degeneration (AMD), diabetic retinopathy (DR), and glaucoma, each with three levels of severity, (mild, moderate, and severe). At present, glaucoma is further developed toward a multidimensional visual impairment simulation. The platform is utilized: i) to provide a safe, controllable, and repeatable set of environments for development and preliminary testing of electronic travel aids (ETAs) in a variety of conditions (i.e., using the ETA to navigate in the immersed environment); and ii) to equip blind and low vision (BVI) professionals, inclusive of orientation and mobility (O\&M) instructors, with a controlled, tunable training platform for skill/capacity building, assessment, and refinement of O\&M techniques, as well as visually impaired trainees with a safe and immersive environment to improve their O\&M skills and learn novel techniques. Two sets of hypothesis-driven experiments are proposed to assess the feasibility of the platform with respect to these two objectives.

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