Speaker: LUCA NARDELLI Creating a product involves many different aspects, from user analysis to engineering, to funding and finally to market launch. This talk will cover some pieces of the history of Horus and the lessons we learned.

2. 285 million people are estimated to be
visually impaired worldwide:
39 million are blind and 246 have low vision*.
* Source: World Health Organization

3. Visually impaired
285 M
Blind
54 M
People with low vision (2015)
Blind
39 M
Blind people (estimates for 2020)
Global data source: WHO, IBU

5. Horus is a wearable device developed
to assist blind and visually impaired
people during the entire day.
Horus observes, understands and
describes the environment to the user,
providing useful information.

6. Menu
buttons
Stereo
camera
Bone conduction
system
Menu
buttons
Volume
buttons
Headset
connection
Horus is composed of two parts: the wearable headset and the pocket unit

7. Our story (in short)
Feb 14’ 15’
SPECIAL AWARD
Recognized by MIT Tech. Review
as a disruptive company
Jan 16’
GROWTH
12 new employment
opportunities in two
years
May 16’
Raised 900k$ in
Venture Capital
BETA Prototypes
Received the first
custom boards and
assembled the first
beta prototypes
Sep 16’
Project
start

10. External input identification
Cameras acquire images
Images are transferred
to the computing unit
3
2
1
Audio is transferred back to the headset5
Information extraction
4
Sound output
6
How Horus works

11. Horus can help the user with:
Scene descriptionFace recognitionText reading Object recognition Mobility assistance

12. Horus is able to recognize printed
text. It helps the user in obtaining
a correct position for reading,
thanks to an audio feedback given
through bone conduction.
Text recognition

13. If the text is located in the upper part of the
field of view, Horus emits a high-pitched
sound to tell the user to lower the text
If the text is located in the lower part of the
field of view, Horus emits a low-pitched sound
to tell the user to raise the text
Example of audio feedback

14. Horus can recognize people’s
faces and describe them to the
user. After detecting a face, Horus
can quickly associate a name to
it, thus learning and remembering
the identity of the new person.
Face recognition

15. Horus is able to recognize an
object thanks to 3D perception.
When Horus has to learn a new
object, the user can simply rotate
it in front of the cameras. Horus
will memorize and learn its shape
in order to properly recognize it in
different situations
Object recognition

16. Processing
Input frame (stereo)
Point cloud
Point cloud
Disparity map
Processing pipeline

17. Center sound
Right sound
High pitch sound
Low pitch sound
Left sound
From above
The location of the object is communicated using stereo audio and variation in pitch
Audible UI

18. Horus can observe and analyze
the surrounding environment to
detect the presence of potential
obstacles. The user is made aware
of their presence through a 3D
sound map.
Mobility assistance

19. User
High-pitched sound
left
Horus uses 3D sound to report the presence of obstacles during movement. The space in front of the user is divided in
different sectors: lateral obstacles generate high-pitched sounds in one of the two speakers, while central obstacles
generate low pitched centered sounds. These sounds are repetitive and they increase in repetition frequency as the
obstacle gets closer.
High-pitched sound
right
Reporting obstacles
Low-pitched sound
center

20. Horus is able to describe what the
cameras are seeing.
Whether it is a postcard, a
photograph or a landscape, the
device provides a description of
what is in front of it with a
sentence.
Scene and photos description

21. Video Here

22. What did we
learn?

23. 1
Speaking a lot about our idea

24. 2
Asking for help to mentors and advisors

25. 3
Write everything down

26. 4
Hiring is super important!

27. 5
Always have a plan B
(and maybe C, D, and so on…)

28. luca@horus.tech
it.linkedin.com/in/lnardelli
www.horus.tech
Luca Nardelli - CTO
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