A Navigation Tool for Visually Impaired and Blind People

Abstract

Visual disability or blindness is a common issue in the whole world. Visually impaired people normally rely on senses other than sight to guide them such as touching, hearing, or feeling. This paper describes a tool to help blind and visually impaired people to be able to move around with comfort and confidence. The paper proposes a development of a product that is easy to use by blind and visually impaired people to detect any obstacles accurately and efficiently. The system should allow the blind person to navigate with reasonable speed and confidence by detecting the nearby obstacles. The proposed system implements a device embedded with advanced technology which will give the blind person the needed confidence to perform his/her own work by him/herself rather than depending on others. The system uses ultrasound sensors and raspberry pi to detect any obstacle around the blind person. The system will inform the blind person in case of existence of obstacle through a buzzer or a vibrator. The ultrasonic sensor is used to detect the real time while the blind person is walking. It gives feedback as a sound or a vibration as indication of detecting an obstacle. A prototype blind aid system that can help blind and visually impaired people to move around with leisure has been implemented and tested. It performed as expected.

Keywords

• Blind
• Visually impaired
• Raspberry pi
• Ultrasonic sensor

References

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