Arduino Based Assistive Mobile Application for Blinds

Project Title

Arduino Based Assistive Mobile Application for Blinds

Project Area of Specialization Internet of ThingsProject Summary

Summary:

According to World Health Organization (WHO), almost 1.3 billion people globally live with some sort of visual impairments out of which 36 million are completely blind. It means that a massive chunk of population is not able to get benefited from smart phones. Although mobile applications for such people do exist but still they lack typical usability constraints considered noteworthy for the blinds.

Devices like Tactile Symbol communicator, Braille reader and AI glasses are quite expensive. Hence, they are not used by many visually disabled people. Mobile applications for visually impaired people are developed such as Talkback, Blind Navigator, Blind Launcher etc but they are failed to address all usability metrics outlined typically for blinds. These assistive applications still require assistance of other people to be used completely by visually challenged person himself.

In our research project we will develop an Android based application which has complete assistance with speech to text and text to speech facilities. The interface design is very easy and learnable way so that learning may not become an overhead for the users. Following are the modules of our application.

• Dialer: A gesture based dialer is provided in which user just have to draw a gesture on screen to dial any number for making a call.
• Contacts: Contacts display is designed in such a manner that at a time only two contacts are displayed vertically. Swiping down will show next two contacts. Tapping on upper half of screen reads out loud the name and number of first contact and tapping on lower half will read the second contact through text to speech output.
• Call: Other than dialer, tapping and holding a contact will forward a call to that contact.
• Text Messages: Speech to text facility is provided for sending a text message and text to speech output facility is utilized for reading a received text message.
• Music: Start/Stop and Next/Previous buttons are provided in easy to understand and learnable manner to enjoy the songs.
• Navigation: GPS based easy location service is used with text to speech output. For making navigation easiest for blinds, an Arduino based smart cane is designed which can be controlled through our application. For this, ultrasonic sensors are used along with Bluetooth module in an integrated circuit. Hurdles are detected and user is notified through speech based application.

This integrated application covers all areas that a blind user may need in a smart phone. Usually navigation facility is never provided to user in a single application. So this has solved the problem of installing multiple applications for blind assistance.

Project Objectives

Objectives:

The aim of our project is to find and address the usability issues in currently existing applications that are specifically available for visually impaired people.

The main objective of this project is to develop a strong navigation system for blinds using an arduino based smart cane which can be operated through our mobile application.

Secondly, whenever a blind uses any blind assistive application, he/she has to get help from others to go through and learn that application. We aim to remove this overhead so that a blind user can use smart phone independently.

Project Implementation Method

Following implementation methodology is adopted for this project.

• Studying the currently existing blind assistant application to figure out the usability issues.
• Conducting surveys to know what blinds have to face in this area.
• Using the survey’s results, designing the best suitable UI for our application.
• Developing and testing each module of application one by one.
• Developing a smart cane which is operated with navigation module of the application.
• Completing the documentation and related work.
• Writing the research paper on this topic.

Benefits of the Project

Benefits of the Project:

• Instead of getting help from other people, a blind user can use this application independently.
• Easily learnable interface will make the user more comfortable with this application in less time.
• Smart cane will help the user to navigate easily.
• Text to speech and speech to text facilities helps in getting current status of application.
• This application and its interface designing can help in making more modules for a blind application not just for smart phone but for desktop as well.

Technical Details of Final Deliverable

Following are the technical details of all modules of our mobile application.

UI Design:

UI of this application has a text to speech based learnable interface.

Contacts, Call and Dailler Module:

These are too based on text to speech output. Gesture based dialler is made so that drawing a number can give 1 digit input at a time.

Outdoor and Indoor Navigation Modules:

Outdoor navigation system is GPS enabled module which dictates the current location of user through text to speech output. Smart cane is also used for hurdle detections.

Indoor navigation module is connected to a smart cane via blutooth to detect hurdles and inform the user about surroundings.

Smart Cane:

The arduino based cane is used which is integrated with ultrasonic sensors and HC-05 Bluetooth module to conntect with application. Ultrasonic sensors are best to observe the nearby hurdles. The cane is connected with the application via bluetooth, so that user is notified everytime a hurdle is detected through voice output.

SMS Module:

This module's input is speech to text based to create and send the SMS while text to speech based output to read the received SMS.

Music Module:

This module is used to play, forward, backward stop the song based on a blind user friendly interface.

Final Deliverable of the Project HW/SW integrated systemType of Industry IT Technologies Internet of Things (IoT), OthersSustainable Development Goals Good Health and Well-Being for PeopleRequired Resources

Item Name	Type	No. of Units	Per Unit Cost (in Rs)	Total (in Rs)
			Total in (Rs)	18000
Arduino Starter Kit	Equipment	2	3500	7000
Arduino Ultrasonic Sensor	Equipment	15	130	1950
HC-05 Bluetooth Module	Equipment	4	370	1480
Energizer 9V Battery	Equipment	4	350	1400
Equipment Delivery Charges	Miscellaneous	2	345	690
Survay Costs	Miscellaneous	1	3000	3000
Arduino UNO R3	Equipment	4	620	2480