Smart Blind Stick for Visually Impaired People

Abstract

Detecting obstacles is always a difficult task for visually impaired people when they move. External guidance such as human, trained dog, or white cane, a.k.a. blind stick, plays an important role in the decision making of blind people. Due to its low cost, white cane is often used by visually impaired people. However, traditional white canes cannot accurately detect obstacles above knee level or at distance beyond the white cane’s length. Our goal is to create an affordable, smart blind stick that can help blind people to navigate. The device consists of an ultrasonic sensor and infrared sensors for detection of obstacles in front of blind user and vibration motor + buzzer for alarming. One of the biggest challenges for blind people when they move indoor is to go up and downstair. We aim to address the challenge by integrating into our blind stick a function that alarms user in the presence of staircase. Moreover, this device also has a built-in GPS module and a GSM module that allows the device’s and its user’s location to be tracked and displayed on a smartphone app, a desirable feature for many family members of blind people. Ultrasonic and infrared sensors allowed our smart blind stick to detect obstacles at a distance from 5 cm to 150 cm from the user. Our design has several advantages including low-cost, capability to detect obstacles above knee level, staircase detection, location tracking via smartphone app, etc. In future work, more tests need to be conducted to determine its accuracy and reliability in real-world settings.