Voice recognition system for the visually impaired: virtual cognitive approach

Abstract

The Internet has became an important tool for learners to acquire information and knowledge that encompasses various elements such as text, graphic, numeric, and animation for their learning process. However, the visually impaired learners have no access at all to this tool nor can it he easily taught to them as they are not able to see the links in the web pages. This paper highlights the Mg Sys Visi system that has the capability of access to World Wide Web by browsing in the Internet, checking, sending and receiving email, searching in the Internet, and listening to the content of the search only by giving a voice command to the system. In addition, the system is built with a translator that has the functionality to convert html codes to voice; voice to Braille and then to text again. This system comprises of five modules namely: Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR), Text-to-Speech (TTS), Search engine, Print (Text-Braille) and Translator (Text-to-Braille and Braille-to-Text) module, was originally designed and developed for the visually impaired learners, can be used for other users of special needs like the elderly, and the physically impaired learners. Initial testing of the system indicated very positive results.