International Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics

Volume 119 No. 12 2018, 647-652

ISSN: 1314-3395 (on-line version)
url: http://www.ijpam.eu
Special Issue
ijpam.eu

IOT Based Assistive Technologies for Visually

Impaired Persons
1
Madhumitha Ramamurthy, 2Naveen V, 3Mithun K, 4Nivas R
1
Associate Professor, Department of CSE, Sri Krishna College of Engineering and
Technology, Coimbatore, TamilNadu, India, Email-id: [email protected]
2,3,4
UG Students, Department of CSE, Sri Krishna College of Engineering and
Technology, Coimbatore, TamilNadu,India,Email-id: [email protected]

Abstract
It has always been a pain and struggle for the visually impaired people
to navigate from one place to another. Hence artificial vision is
provided to the visually impaired persons through several electronic
aids. Many elctronic aids are developed for visually impaired persons.
Most of the devices make use of smart stick and guide dogs. Hence we
propose an Electronic Travelling Aid (ETA) which helps the visually
impaired persons to help in navigation. This ETA is fixed to the shoe.
When the object is detected near to the shoe, the sensors used alerts
them with the help of vibratory circuit and the alert is also sent to the
blind people through the headphones via android application.

Keywords: Blind, Electronic Aid, Sensors

1. Introduction

Vision is a very important for every human being. The person who is
visionless experiences many disabilities. This impact makes such individuals
deprive from performing of the activities of daily living, especially navigating from
one place to another place.
Hence artificial vision is provided to the visually impaired persons through
several electronic aids. Many elctronic aids are developed for visually impaired
persons. Most of the devices make use of smart stick and guide dogs [4]. This
Electronic Travelling Aid (ETA) is designed just like a smart stick [2] gives early
warning of an obstacle using Infrared (IR) sensors. The stick here only alerts the

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visually impaired people using vibrations only after identifying the obstacles but
does not assist to identify the obstacle in the path which is in long distance. The
main drawback [3] of this ETA is the range of motion and the information conveyed
is very less to the visually impaired persons. Many ETA’s [3] [4] [6] are designed
with incorporating both hardware and software in recent days to help the visually
impaired persons to navigate safely and also independently. Some of the ETA’s
make use of IR sensor and buzzer which may not be efficient for blind people in
detecting long distance obstacles.
This paper presents an ETA to provide an IOT based smart electronic aid for
blind people [1]. This electronic aid detects the object and it is sent to the blind
people thereby making him to navigate from one place to another without
hinderence. In other words, this project develops an Electronic Travelling Aid (ETA)
to help the blind people in navigation. This device is fixed in a shoe and alert is
given to the blind person when an object is detected. The alert is also sent to the
blind people through the headphones via android application.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows. Section 2 outlines the literature
review. Section 3 describes the research objectives of this paper. Section 4 outlines
the research methodology used in this paper. Section 5 shows the discussion of the
proposed method and Section 5 gives the conclusion.

2. Literature Review

S.Chew (2012) [6] proposed a method which used the smart white cane. This
cane is also called Blind spot. This uses GPS technology along with ultra sonic
sensors to alert the blind people in navigation.
S.Gangwar (2013) [7] uses a smart stick along with IR sensors for alerting
the blind people. This stick only detects the object.
Benjamin etal (2014) [8] had developed an aid which used stick with laser
sensors. These laser senosrs detects the obstacles indicates the blind person using
microphone.
Central Michigan University (2009) [9] uses a smart cane for blind people
and it uses RFID tag. The information from this tag is given to the blind people.
Also it uses ultrasonic sensor in detecting the objects and alerts using a speaker.
Mohd Helmyabd Wahab and Amirul A. Talibetal (2013) [10] also make use of
ultrasonic sensors to detect the obstacles and alerts using a voive message to the
blind people.
Alejandro R. Garcia Ramirez and Renato Fonseca Livramento da Silvaetal
(2012) [11] used haptic sensors in detection of obstacles and alerts using a message.

3. Research Objectives

1. To help the visually impaired people to navigate freely and independently

with the aid of electronic devices.
2. To develop an ETA which uses ultrasonic sensors to detect the obstacles in

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the path of the blind people

4. Research Methodology

This paper presents a prototype model and the development of an Electronic

Travelling Aid kit (ETA) for blind people in navigating from one place to another
place without any obstacles. This makes the visually impaired persons to be
independent. The project is built with the ARDUINO UNO controller. The objects
are detected using ultrasonic module and IR sensors. These sensors are mounted on
the shoes of the blind person. When the object comes near the shoe, it is detected
and alerts the blind people with vibration as well as voice message through android
application.
There is a Zigbee module with transmitter and receiver. This module checks
the blind person’s movement with the ETA shoe and vibrates if any obstacles found.
The paper uses an ultrasonic module to detect the objects.
The components used in the proposed aid are Microcontroller ARDUINO
UNO, Zigbee module interface, Vibration sensor, Voice storage & voice reply,
Ultrasonic distance measurement module, Gyroscope interface and power supply.
Here the power supply is main criteria the shoe is integrated with self-power
generation unit such that there is no power backup problem.
The Arduino Uno is based on the ATmega328. There is a Zigbee Module which
has the transmitter and receiver. The vibration sensor has high vibration detection
sensitivity and vibrates on the interference of the obstacles in the path. It uses
electromechanical principle vibration velocity sensors which operates in accordance
with the electro dynamic principle and are used for measuring the vibration based
on the peizo-electric effect.
The GSM module is used to send alert to the blind person who uses the ETA
kit. The Ultrasonic sensor is used to measure the distance from the sensor to the
target object. This helps to give alert to the visually impaired persons. These
Ultrasonic sensors are used in object detection and position detection.

5. Results and Discussion

The shoes have two ultrasound sensors placed inside the sole. The sensors
emit ultrasound waves which are reflected by surrounding objects and come back to
the sensor. The shoe vibrates depending on the distance and position of the objects.
If the object is closer, then the device vibrates and alerts the blind people. If the
object is on the side, then then vibration happens on the sole and if the object is
behind, the vibration happens on the heel. The device can detect all objects
including both movable and immovable objects. This device uses rechargeable
batteries.

6. Conclusion

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Blind and visually impaired people suffer a lot when they travel. Many
navigation systems are developed to help the visually impaired persons to
navigate.Thus the IOT based system for assisting blind people is developed and the
drawbacks like receiving less information, poor efficiency of IR sensor is overcome
using our proposed kit. This ETA kit is implemented with efficiency of object
detection and with clear information to a blind people for their guidelines which
helps the blind persons in navigation.

References

1. Shruthi Damhare, A.Sakhare, “Smart stick for Blind: Obstacle Detection,

Artificial vision and Real-time assistance via GPS, 2nd National Conference
on Information and Communication Technology (NCICT) 2011.
2. Gurubaran1, Gowrishankar Kasilingam2, Mritha Ramalingam3, “A Survey
of Voice Aided Electronic Stick for Visually Impaired People”, International
Journal of Innovative Research in Advanced Engineering (IJIRAE) , Volume
1 Issue 8 (September 2014).
3. Naveen Kumar M, Usha K, “Voice based Guidance and Location Indication
Sytem for blind using GSM, GPS and Optical Device Indicator”, International
Journal of Engineering Trends and Technology,2013.
4. Aditya.Kr.Ganguli, Divya Pushp, Apoorva Chaudhary, “Electronic Travel
Aids ETA for Blind Assistance-A Review”, International Journal of
Engineering Science and Computing, 2016.
5. G.Sriramulu, M.Chandrasekhar, B.N.Srinivas, V.Ramoji, “Blind People To
Find Obstacle Free Path Using GPS & GSM”, International Journal of
Innovative Research in Computer Science & Technology, 2014.
6. Selene chew, “The Smart White Cane for Blind” National University of
Singapore (NUS), 2012.
7. Shantanu Gangwar , “Smart stick for Blind”, New Delhi, Sept. 2013.
8. Benjamin J. M., Ali N. A., Schepis A. F., “A Laser Cane for the Blind”
Proceedings of the San Diego Biomedical Symposium, Vol. 12, 53-57.
9. Do Ngoc Hung,Vo Minh-Thanh,Nguyen Minh
Triet,Quoc Luong Huy,Viet Trinh Cuong, “Design and Implementation of
Smart Cane for Visually Impaired People”,International Conference on the
Development of Biomedical Engineering,2017.
10. Mohd Helmyabd Wahab and Amirul A. Talibetal , “A Review on an Obstacle
Detection in Navigation of Visually Impaired”, International Organization of
Scientific Research Journal of Engineering (IOSRJEN), Vol.3, No.1 pp. 01-06,
January 2013.
11. Alejandro R. Garcia Ramirez and Renato Fonseca Livramento da Silvaetal
(2012)‟ Artificial EYE An Innovative Idea to Help the Blind”, Conference
Proceeding of the International Journal of Engineering Development and
Research(IJEDR), SRM University, Kattankulathur, pp.205-207, 2012.

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