DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF ULTRASONIC NAVIGATOR FOR THE BLIND

DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF ULTRASONIC NAVIGATOR FOR THE BLIND

ABSTRACT

Ultrasonic Blind Walking Stick is an innovative stick designed for visually disabled people for improved navigation. This project herein proposed is an advanced blind stick that allows visually challenged people to navigate with ease using advanced technology. The blind walking stick is integrated with ultrasonic sensor along with light and water sensing modules. The ultrasonic sensor is to detect obstacles ahead using ultrasonic waves. On sensing obstacles the sensor passes this data to the microcontroller. The microcontroller then processes this data and calculates if the obstacle is close enough. If the obstacle is not that close the circuit does nothing. If the obstacle is close the microcontroller sends a signal to sound a buzzer.

CHAPTER 1 – Introduction

1.0       Introduction

God gifted sense of vision to the human being is an important aspect of our life. But there are some unfortunate people who lack the ability of visualizing things. The visually impaired have to face many challenges in their daily life. The problem gets worse when there is an obstacle in front of them. Blind stick is an innovative stick designed for visually disabled people for improved navigation. The paper presents a theoretical system concept to provide a smart ultrasonic aid for blind people. The system is intended to provide overall measures – Artificial vision and object detection. The aim of the overall system is to provide a low cost and efficient navigation aid for a visually impaired person who gets a sense of artificial vision by providing information about the environmental scenario of static and dynamic objects around them. Ultrasonic sensors are used to calculate distance of the obstacles around the blind person to guide the user towards the available path. Output is in the form of sequence of beep sound which the blind person can hear (wikipedia).

There are approximately 37 million people across the globe who are blind, over 15 million are from India. Even for the non-visually impaired the congestion of obstacles is sometimes problematic, it’s even worse for the visually impaired. People with visual disabilities are often dependent on external assistance which can be provided by humans, trained dogs, or special electronic devices as support systems for decision making. Existing devices are able to detect and recognize objects that emerge on the floor, but a considerable risk is also includes the objects that are at a sudden depth, or obstacles above waist level or stairs. Thus we were motivated to develop a smart white cane to overcome these limitations. The most common tool that the blind currently use to navigate is the standard white cane. We decided to modify and enhance the walking cane, since blind are only able to detect objects by touch or by cane. The user sweeps the cane back and forth in front of them. When the cane hits an object or falls off of the edge of a stair, the user then becomes aware of the obstacle – sometimes too late. We accomplished this goal by adding ultrasonic sensors at specific positions to the cane that provided information about the environment to the user through audio feedback. The main component of this system is the Radio-Frequency module which is used to find the stick if it is misplaced around.

1.1 Background and Justification

Vision is the most important part of human physiology as 83% of information human being gets from the environment is via sight. The 2011 statistics by the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that there are 285 million people in world with visual impairment, 39 billion of which are blind and 246 with low vision. The traditional and oldest mobility aids for persons with visual impairments are the walking cane (also called white cane or stick) and guide dogs. The most important drawbacks of these aids are necessary skills and training phase, range of motion and very little information conveyed. With the rapid advances of modern technology, both in hardware and software front have brought potential to provide intelligent navigation capabilities. Recently there has been a lot of Electronic Travel Aids (ETA) designed and devised to help the blind navigate independently and safely (wikipedia). Also high-end technological solutions have been introduced recently to help blind persons to navigate independently. Many blind guidance systems use ultrasound because of its immunity to the environmental noise. Another reason why ultrasonic is popular is that the technology is relatively inexpensive, and also ultrasound emitters and detectors are small enough to be carried without the need for complex circuit. Blind people have used canes as mobility tools for centuries, but it was not until after World War I that the white cane was introduced.

1.2    Aim and Objectives

1.2.1  Aim

The main aim of this project “Ultrasonic Blind Walking Stick” is to implement an advanced blind stick that allows visually challenged people to navigate with ease using advanced technology. The blind walking stick is integrated with ultrasonic sensor, light and water sensing modules. These modules help the blind person to navigate, avoid obstacles, water and know when it is dark.

1.2.2  Objectives

This project is also embarked with the following objective:

• To research on the design methods of ultrasonic systems (review of literature)
• To study MCU architecture, cross compilation and development environment for the intending MCU
• To learn as well as developed firmware based on the selected MCU
• To interface ultrasonic sensor to the MCU.
• To interface alarm (buzzer) to the MCU.
• To interface discrete electronic hardware to the MCU.
• Perform reliability test and analysis of the system

1.3     Motivation

The traditional and oldest mobility aids for persons with visual impairments are the walking cane (also called white cane or stick) and guide dogs. The most important drawbacks of these aids are necessary skills and training phase, range of motion and very little information conveyed. With the rapid advances of modern technology, both in hardware and software front have brought potential to provide intelligent navigation capabilities. Recently there has been a lot of Electronic Travel Aids (ETA) designed and devised to help the blind navigate independently and safely. Also high-end technological solutions have been introduced recently to help blind persons to navigate independently. Many blind guidance systems use ultrasound because of its immunity to the environmental noise. Another reason why ultrasonic is popular is that the technology is relatively inexpensive, and also ultrasound emitters and detectors are small enough to be carried without the need for complex circuit.

1.4   Contribution to Knowledge

The original contributions to this work are:

• Development of a customized firmware for the Microcontroller Unit
• Develop hardware interface using Arduino mini pro based.
• Interface Arduino mini to ultrasonic sensor module, LCD 16x 2 displays.
• Design a customized casing.

1.5    Scope of the Study

This project work covers some area of electrical/electronic engineering, dealing with components such as microcontrollers, LCD, transistors, resistors, capacitors, diodes, and other component required to produce an effectively working an ultrasonic navigator for the blind. It lays emphasis on the rating properties and uses of these components. It also exposes students to price bargaining, designing and work assembling.

A programmable controller is used to automatically to detect all this parameters mentioned and sending out the result via the buzzer.

1.6     Limitation of the Study

This design has numerous advantages as well as application but it’s also subjected to many limitations and criticisms. This includes

• This device is expensive
• It cannot work effectively with voltage below 5volts.
• The might be error in measurement due environment conditions.

CHAPTER TWO

2.0       LITERATURE REVIEW

 There are number of blind people in the society, who are suffering while exercising the basic things of daily life and that could put lives at risk while travelling. There is a necessity these days to provide security and safety to blind people. There have been few devices designed so far to help the blind.

Blindness or visual impairment is a condition that affects many people around the world. The usage of the blind navigation system is very less and is not efficient. The blind traveler is dependent on other guide like white cane, information given by the people, trained dogs etc. Many virtually impaired people use walking sticks or guide dogs to move from place to place. A guide dog is trained for guiding its users to avoid the accidents from objects and barriers over a fixed path or in a fixed area. When a visually impaired person uses a walking stick, he waves his stick and finds the obstacle by striking the obstacles in his way.