A navigation aid for blind people

Abstract

This paper presents a navigation aid for the blind based on a microcontroller with synthetic speech output. The system consists of two vibrators, two ultrasonic sensors mounted on the user's shoulders and another one integrated into the cane. It is able to give information to the blind about urban walking routes and to provide real-time information on the distance of over-hanging obstacles within 6 m along the travel path ahead of the user. The suggested system can then sense the surrounding environment via sonar sensors and sending vibro-tactile feedback to the user of the position of the closest obstacles in range. For the ultrasonic cane, it is used to detect any obstacle on the ground. Experimental results show the effectiveness of the proposed system for blind navigation. © 2011 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.