Assistive handheld device for visually challenged people

Blindness is a problem that afflicts millions of people everywhere. When performing everyday routine work, blind people may face many types of difficulties. Even in their own homes, they must exhibit efforts to navigate from one place to another and to locate objects. So visual impa

Project Title

Assistive handheld device for visually challenged people

Project Area of Specialization

Artificial Intelligence

Project Summary

Blindness is a problem that afflicts millions of people everywhere. When performing everyday routine work, blind people may face many types of difficulties. Even in their own homes, they must exhibit efforts to navigate from one place to another and to locate objects. So visual impairment can affect one’s ability to function independently, to perform day-to-day activities of life and to travel safely. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 253 million people in the world live with visual impairment, out of which 36 million of them are blind and 217 million people have some form of vision impairment. Though canes for visually impaired people help them to avoid obstacles on their way, that don’t help to identify the type of object and to locate them. Hence identifying and finding out the distance of the object will be of great help for them. Due to the difficulty in getting visual information, in many circumstances blind people seek the help of others. The purpose of our project is to create a handheld device that

1. Detects and identifies the surrounding objects and notify the user with an audio message. This will help people with vision problem to carry out daily activities without much external help. It takes an image of the object as input and outputs the distance between the blind and obstacle. It also converts the object’s name to audio.

2. Our device will also have the water detecting sensors that detects presence of water around it and will warn the blind person about the presence of water on the road or anywhere else.

3. This device will also contain temperature sensor that will detect the presence of fire or a hot thing around the blind.

4. A Bluetooth device will connect the system with the earbuds that the user can use this product with his hands free. Our system will use different hardware like the HC-SR04 ultrasonic sensor, Arduino UNO, Raspberry Pi, Pi camera, Water detection sensor, Temperature sensor. and techniques like OpenCV python.

Project Objectives

The aim our project is to

"becoming an eye for the blind"

Our product will be one of the accurate systems which can help the blind to explore their surroundings better. This product helps blind to identify the obstacle and assist them to navigate from one location to another. And by detecting each object it also calculates the distance between the blind and object. Finally, it provides the audio output about the obstacle. This product can also tell if there is any water or fire around, by using its sensors. So, it will be more user-friendly and portable for the blind. And it helps the blind to understand the surroundings without the support of another person.

Project Implementation Method

The proposed model attempts to design a system whereby obstacles are detected in front of the user using sensors and where obstacles are currently using a camera. The proposed system will perform image captioning on the scene captured through the camera using some artificially intelligent tecniques like Open CV. This system will be using a Raspberry Pi, Ultrasonic Sensors, Camera Module,  and an Audio Device. The Raspberry Pi triggers the ultrasonic sensor to start sending the burst signal. Here all the sensors start sensing at the same time, so it does not cause any delay between any sensor. If there is an obstacle detected, then the sensor sends the echo signal to the Raspberry Pi. Then the Raspberry Pi calculates the difference between the time of transmitting the burst signal and receiving the echo signal, using this time the Raspberry Pi calculates the distance between the user and the obstacle by using Distance=(Speed of Sound*Time)/2. 

 PI camera module used in this system can act as an eye for the visually impaired person. Each time the ultrasonic sensor detects an obstacle it captures the picture. The picture is sent to Raspberry Pi, so that it can process the image and generate the caption for that image.

The audio device is the one that conveys the image caption to the user in the form of audio. It receives an audio signal from Raspberry Pi once the caption for the image is successfully converted into an audio format using a text to speech algorithm.

For detecting water content, a water sensor is placed at bottom of the system. Water sensing circuit is used for water detection. The circuit connection of water sensor consists of two 330ohm resistor, 1microFarad capacitor and 1kohm variable resistor. When water comes in contact with two open ends of variable resistor, it will complete circuit and outcome is given through audio device.

Benefits of the Project

1. The smart walking stick helps blind people to perform navigation and to do their work easily and comfortably. In normal stick, the detection of the obstacle is not done and normal stick is not efficient for visually impaired persons. Because the blind person does not know what type of things or what type of the objects come in front of him or her. The person cannot recognize what is the size of that object and how far is he/she from the object. It is difficult for blind person to move here and there. In smart walking stick, the object is detected with the help of a camera and also it measures the distance between objects by using ultrasonic sensor. If any obstacle comes in front of blind person, he/she can know about the obstacle by hearing the sound generated by the head phone. The system is very useful for people who are visually impaired and are often need help from others.

2. Visually impaired persons have difficulty to interact and feel their environment. They have little contact with surroundings. Physical movement is a challenge for visually impaired persons, because it can become tricky to distinguish obstacles appearing in front of them, and they are not able to move from one place to another.

3. The smart walking stick is a simple and purely mechanical device to detect the obstacles on the ground. This device is light in weight and portable. But its range is limited due to its own size. It provides the best travel aid for the person. The blind person can move from one place to another independently without the others help. The main aim of the system is to provide a efficient navigation aid for the blind persons which gives a sense of vision by providing the information about their surroundings and objects around them.

Technical Details of Final Deliverable

Following is a list of sensors and products used in our system 

A. Raspberry Pi: It acts as the heart of the system as it controls, processes and generates all the inputs and outputs. The Raspberry Pi used in this system will be running on Raspbian Lite OS. It receives an echo signal from the ultrasonic sensors which trigger it to take further actions, which is to check whether the obstacle is there or not. It generates an immediate alert using the buzzer. It also generates a caption for the image captured by the camera and later converts that caption into a speech that is played through an audio device.

B. Ultrasonic sensor (HC-SR04): HC-SR04 sensor is a 4-pin module. It is an Ultrasonic sensor which works with the help of a transmitter and Receiver embedded in it. It ranges from 2cm to 4m with a measuring angle of 15°. C.

C. PiCamera Module: Pi camera module which is widely used to take highdefinition photographs, as well as high-definition video. It has a resolution of 5 megapixels.

D. Audio Device: The term "audio device" refers to any device that attaches to a system for the purpose of playing a different kind of sound, such as music or speech. Audio devices include loudspeakers, earphones or headphones.

E. Water detection sensor: For detecting water content, a water sensor is placed at bottom of the system, water sensing circuit is used for water detection. The circuit connection of water sensor consists of two 330ohm resistor, 1microFarad capacitor and 1kohm variable resistor. When water comes in contact with two open ends of variable resistor, it will complete circuit and outcome is given through audio device.

Final Deliverable of the Project

Hardware System

Core Industry

Health

Other Industries

Core Technology

Artificial Intelligence(AI)

Other Technologies

Sustainable Development Goals

Good Health and Well-Being for People

Required Resources

If you need this project, please contact me on contact@adikhanofficial.com