With their interactive glasses for people who are deaf, the student team Sonovision won first prize at the international innovation competition iCANX in Hong Kong. The glasses transcribe conversations and provide visual alerts to potential danger - and could sustainably change the everyday lives of people with hearing impairments.
Elias Al Haschemi As third place and then second place are awarded at the iCANX ceremony in Hong Kong, the name Sonovision has still not been called. The three team members - Dragan Rašeta, Paula Ruhwandl, and Daniel Martin - are unsure whether to hope or to doubt. "In that moment, it is clear: either we receive no prize at all, or we get first place," recalls Dragan Rašeta, who is responsible for Sonovision's hardware. A few seconds later, the name of their project is announced. First comes relief, then celebration - it is the moment in which months of work turn into international success.
Glasses against invisible barriers
The origins of Sonovision lie in a simple question: in which everyday situations do people encounter barriers that could be reduced with the help of sensors and microsystems? When their advisor, Dr. Yushen Zhang, draws the team's attention to the COSIMA competition (Competition of Students in Microsystems Applications), an intensive research phase begins. "We wanted to develop an idea that truly adds value in everyday life," emphasizes Daniel Martin. The business informatics student is responsible for Sonovision's software. Soon, one group comes into focus whose challenges are often overlooked: "We realized that people with hearing impairments cannot perceive many everyday dangers because acoustic warning signals are missing or difficult to detect."
This realization leads to the idea of visualizing acoustic signals - directly in the wearer's field of vision. Today, the glasses transcribe spoken language in real time and display it. At the same time, microphones analyze the surroundings and provide direction-based warnings of potential danger. "If, for example, a car is approaching from behind on the right, an LED lights up on the right side of the glasses frame and a warning appears in the display," explains Paula Ruhwandl, who is responsible for organization and public relations. The project is supported by the Friends of TUM association as well as the Chair of Electronic Design Automation under the direction of Ulf Schlichtmann.
From an early stage, the team speaks with people with hearing impairments and collects feedback at presentations - including individuals outside the originally intended target group. On this basis, the students develop an initial prototype, which they enter into the COSIMA competition. The team convinces the twelve-member jury and qualifies for participation in iCANX.
From prototype to startup vision
The road to Hong Kong is not entirely smooth. Time and again, the technology does not work as planned; components have to be replaced and solutions rethought. "Especially at the beginning, we couldn't get our ideas to work the way we wanted," says Paula Ruhwandl. Preparing the presentation together also proves to be a challenge: in the months leading up to the competition, the three live on different continents and only see each other again on site.
Yet their commitment pays off. The jury honors Sonovision not least for the social impact of its innovative glasses. "Many of the other projects were technically very interesting, but either had no clear everyday benefit or did not stand out sufficiently from existing solutions," explains Martin.
As a next step, the students plan to miniaturize the hardware to make it even easier and more discreet to use in everyday life. They also plan to optimize the software and its recognition algorithms so that the system can respond even more quickly and accurately. Further testing with people with hearing impairments is particularly important to them: "We want to find out which functions help them the most and what we should improve based on their feedback," says Rašeta.
"In the long term, we would like to explore potential partnerships with companies and research groups as well," adds Martin. "This will allow us to see whether Sonovision can develop from a student project into a market-ready product and perhaps even form the basis for a future startup."
