Technological Opportunity Analysis: Assistive Technology for Blind and Visually Impaired People

Abstract

As life expectancy increases, the number of people who suffer from blind and visual impairment due to presbyopia is gradually increasing. Assistive device systems have been used to overcome various physical, social, infrastructure, and accessibility barriers. As technology has advanced, the scope of assistive technologies has been expanded. Therefore, we explored technological opportunities in assistive technology for the blind and visually impaired to establish a strategy for the technology competition in the near future. Firstly, the patent vacuum is detected by generating the patent map based on generative topographic mapping (GTM). Secondly, social network analysis is applied to identify the relationship between patent vacuums and occupied grid points in the patent map. Finally, the technology activity index and technology impact index are considered at quantitative and qualitative levels. Consequently, it was identified that wearable devices, including the road situation signal acquisition module and data acquisition process control module, could be occupied in the future. This study can provide practical ideas for research and development (R&D) in the field of assistive devices for the blind and visually impaired. In addition, this study can be an ample source for decision/policy makers to project new contents.

Identification of Promising Smart Farm Technologies and Development of Technology Roadmap Using Patent Map Analysis

“…The overall process of our proposed approach consists of the following five steps: patent search, clustering technology, technical analysis, vacant technologies, and technology development roadmap. Each step consists of substeps to achieve each particular goal, as shown in Figure 1 [7,13,14]. The first step is to collect the abstract of the patent document.…”

“…The criticality analysis analyzes the current technology level based on the number of patent applications and claims terms, and the trend analysis analyzes future trends based on data over time. The result drawn as "High Level" of the critical analysis mean corresponding technology is currently developed actively and is predicted to attain good technology progresses in the future [7,13]. The result drawn as "Hot Field" from the trend analysis mean corresponding technology will be developed actively in the future [14,33].…”

“…The one quadrant is defined at the high level where both the TAI and TII indicators are high, and the two and three quadrants are defined at the medium level where either the TAI or TII index is high. Finally, the four quadrants are defined at the low level where all indicators are low [7,13,14,32].…”

A Case Study on the Design and Implementation of a Platform for Hand Rehabilitation

“…and advances in computer science (cloud solutions, open-source, etc.) can help to provide more efficient rehabilitation solutions [4][5][6][7] or even shift part of the rehabilitation process from medical institutions to the local or even home environment.…”

“…In medical research, many challenges exist in additive manufacturing (integration with tissue, ethical standpoints, etc.). Assistive technology [11] concerns the technology which can improve the functional capabilities of persons with disabilities [4], and might make use of additive manufacturing easier than in medical research. Another technology that can help in the rehabilitation process is the consequence of the rapid development of robotics [12].…”