Pukyong National University Student Wins Excellence Award in AI Contest for Underprivileged Groups

'Navigation Cane' Idea

Students of Pukyong National University (President Jang Young-su) won an award by submitting content that helps marginalized groups using artificial intelligence (AI).

On the 19th, Pukyong National University announced that a student team consisting of Bang Min-seong (4th year, Electrical Engineering), Jin Chang-min (1st year, Department of International Trade), Guk Gyeong-min (1st year, Ecological Engineering), Do Su-yeon (1st year, Department of Marine Production System Management), and Lee Jae-seong (1st year, Computer Engineering) received the Excellence Award at the 3rd AI Utilization Idea Contest for Marginalized Groups.

They received the award for their work titled "Navigation Cane - Son-gillo" for the visually impaired at the contest hosted by the AI Convergence Education Center of the Korea Distance University Council.

Students from the National Pukyong University who won the Excellence Award in the AI Utilization Contest for the Underprivileged. (From left: Jin Chang-min, Guk Kyung-min, Do Su-yeon, Bang Min-seong, Lee Jae-seong)

Under the theme "AI Utilization Cases and Applied Technologies for Marginalized Groups," the team developed a navigation system to assist the safe movement of visually impaired individuals, who are transportation-vulnerable.

They proposed the idea of a cane equipped with voice recognition and voice guidance functions that provides real-time directions to help visually impaired users safely reach their destinations.

When the user speaks their destination, the device connects with a map application to start navigation, and by recognizing signals such as GPS, it provides traffic and road information to the user through a vibration sensor embedded in the device.

Using cameras and various sensors, it also provides information about obstacles, and by utilizing biosensors, it measures the user's heart rate to detect emergency situations.

The team submitted this project, which they worked on as a team assignment during last semester's undergraduate liberal arts course "Presentation and Discussion" (instructor Chae Young-hee), to the contest and achieved award-winning results.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.