9528079 Vaina This project is a Small Grant for Exploratory Research. The feasibility of new approaches to vision applied to recognition problems of use to the visually impaired is investigated. These approaches combine coarse, easily obtainable, visual data with novel adaptive learning algorithms to recognize features such as moving objects and terrain irregularities. The results of this research project will be feasibility study as to the robustness and practicality of this approach in developing a "magic hat" - an aid to the visually impaired consisting of a sensor and computation ring that would be worn by users as a hat and which adaptively warn the user of hazards. ***
