Navigation Stick for Blind

There are 02 milllion blind people in Pakistan. Out of which 3,40000 resides in Sindh (The News, Mon Feb 24, 2020). Dineen et al found that cataract is tha major cause of blindness (Br J Ophthalmol. 2007 Aug; 91(8): 1005?1010). Mos

Project Title

Navigation Stick for Blind

Project Area of Specialization

Biomedical Engineering

Project Summary

There are 02 milllion blind people in Pakistan. Out of which 3,40000 resides in Sindh (The News, Mon Feb 24, 2020). Dineen et al found that cataract is tha major cause of blindness (Br J Ophthalmol. 2007 Aug; 91(8): 1005–1010). Most of people suffering form blindess and low vision require assistance in mobility and in performing day to day activities. Blind navigation stick is one of those devices that has been in use extensively by blind people. Most of the ultrasonic cane or navigational blind sticks consist of sensors for the detection of hurdles in three dimensions. But not capable of recognizing moving object's velocity and the kind of object passing near by blind.

The purpose of this study is to design and manufacture blind navigation stick that not only detects hurdles in its way but also detects the direction of moving objects for the user. The second objective of this study is to capture the image of object in the way of the user and, using image processing, identify the actual object.

Project Objectives

The purpose of this study is to design and manufacture blind navigation stick that not only detects hurdles in its way but also detects the direction of moving objects for the user. The second objective of this study is to capture the image of object in the way of the user and, using image processing, identify the actual object.

Project Implementation Method

The project aims at providing ease to blind people in navigating from one place to another. The obstacle detection will be done using ultrasonic sensors. There will be three ultrasonic sensors used in the prototype one facing the front, second one facing the right and third one facing the left directions with respect to stick. The sensors will sense the nearby obstacles by using sonic technology. The microcontroller (Raspberry Pi) processes the values generated by sensor and calculate the distance from the obstacle. If distance below threshold then alert signals will be generated indicating the proximity of the obstacle. The devices will also be facilitated with water detection sensor to avoid stepping in watery region. Voice module will also be incorporated to make the device voice operatable. To navigate user from one place to any other, GPS module will be available to follow maps offline so that user can reach to any distnaton with maximum possible accuracy.

The breakthroug of this device will be image processing technique that will enable device to recognize objects present in user's surrounding. The camera will be placed on  a stick to capture images and through machine learing algorithms , detection of objects will be done.

Benefits of the Project

The product may help navigating 2 million people in Pakistan.

Technical Details of Final Deliverable

The product will be in the form of a stick, consisting of all the sensors and camera and all.

Final Deliverable of the Project

HW/SW integrated 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

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