An Obstacle Detection and Guidance System for Mobility of Visually Impaired in Unfamiliar Indoor Environments

Abstract

This paper describes the development of a wearable navigation aid for blind and visually impaired persons to facilitate their movement in unfamiliar indoor environments. It comprises of a Kinect unit, a Tablet PC, a microcontroller, IMU sensors, and vibration actuators. It minimizes reliance on audio instructions for avoiding obstacles and instead guides the blind through gentle vibrations produced in a wearable belt and a light helmet. By differentiating obstacles from the floor, it can detect even relatively small-size obstacles. It can also guide the blind to reach a desired destination (office/room/elevator) within an unfamiliar building with the help of 2-D printed codes, RGB camera of Kinect unit, a compass sensor for orienting the user towards the next direction of movement, and synthesized audio instructions. The developed navigation system has been successfully tested by both blind-folded and blind persons.