New EAV Prototype

After several months of work, the group has worked arduously in different fields,: physical design, sounds, systems of vision, aesthetic , tests of verification, etc,. We have successfully finalized the design and the manufacture of the new EAV prototype, that has been presented at the 18th Annual International Conference "Technology and Persons with Disabilities", CSUN 2003 at Los Angeles, USA.

The new features of this prototype are:

- The portability has been improved, with a total mass inferior to 1.5 kg.

- Improvements in aesthetic and the ergonomics, being one first approach to a commercial solution. It was necessary to resort to techniques of fast plastics prototyping, as well as to the selective sintering by laser. It is the first time that this type of technique is used at IAC, and its advantage is that it allows to directly obtain functional prototypes of the CAD designs.

A portatil unit with all the integrated necessary functionalities has been obtained. The same unit includes the processor, the electronics for image capture, sound amplifier and battery.

- All the control electronics of the image sensors has been integrated at the glasses, so it has been reduced to the necessary wiring between the processor unit and the glasses extraordinarily.

- The autonomy of the equipment has been improved, one of the most negative aspects of old developments. The present prototype allows to an autonomy near 4 hours thanks to the use of Ion batteries Lithium and to a processor unit of smaller consumption.