Secure Navigation System for Visually Impaired

A cane is commonly used to help blind people navigate on a path. A stick is used to inform them about any pits, obstacles or elevation. This paper presents a secure system which detects any obstacles using an Ultrasonic sensor. GPS-GSM module is used that gives us the location of the person and sends a message alert on the phone of their families on regular intervals. Also, obstacle detection warning is given through a voice command using speaker or headphones. This system is designed to help visually impaired navigate a path safely and without much difficulties. In the present ongoing systems the security and safety of the visually impaired person is not adequately taken care of. So we will be preparing an Electronic Travelling Aid (ETA) with ultrasonic sensor and GPS for increasing the security and safety of the visually impaired person. This system will be more efficient and cost effective as compared to its former systems

AmIE: An Ambient Intelligent Environment for Assisted Living

In the modern world of technology Internet-of-things (IoT) systems strives to provide an extensive interconnected and automated solutions for almost every life aspect. This paper proposes an IoT context-aware system to present an Ambient Intelligence (AmI) environment; such as an apartment, house, or a building; to assist blind, visually-impaired, and elderly people. The proposed system aims at providing an easy-to-utilize voice-controlled system to locate, navigate and assist users indoors. The main purpose of the system is to provide indoor positioning, assisted navigation, outside weather information, room temperature, people availability, phone calls and emergency evacuation when needed. The system enhances the user's awareness of the surrounding environment by feeding them with relevant information through a wearable device to assist them. In addition, the system is voice-controlled in both English and Arabic languages and the information are displayed as audio messages in both languages. The system design, implementation, and evaluation consider the constraints in common types of premises in Kuwait and in challenges, such as the training needed by the users. This paper presents cost-effective implementation options by the adoption of a Raspberry Pi microcomputer, Bluetooth Low Energy devices and an Android smart watch.Comment: 6 pages, 8 figures, 1 tabl

Walking Assistant - A Mobile Aid for the Visually-Impaired

The most common navigation aid visually-impaired people employ is a white cane, but, recently, technology has given rise to a varied set of sophisticated navigation aids. While these new aids can provide more assistance to a visually-impaired person than a white cane, they tend to be expensive due to a small market segment, which in turn can reduce their accessibility. In an effort to produce a technologically-advanced yet accessible navigation aid, an Android application is proposed that detects and notifies users about obstacles within their path through the use of a smartphone\u27s camera. While the smartphone is mounted on a harness worn by the user, the Walking Assistant application operates by capturing images as the user walks, finding features of objects within each frame, and determining how the features have moved from image to image. If it is discovered that an object is moving towards the user, the Walking Assistant will activate the smartphone\u27s vibration mode to alert the user to the object\u27s presence. Additionally, the user can control the Walking Assistant through the use of either touch or voice commands. By conducting real-world tests, it was determined that the Walking Assistant can correctly identify obstacles 42.1% of the time, while generating false positive obstacle identifications only 15.0% of the time. The accuracy of the Walking Assistant can be further improved by implementing additional features, such as a fuzzy-decision-based thresholding system or image stabilization

A Systematic Review of Urban Navigation Systems for Visually Impaired People

Blind and Visually impaired people (BVIP) face a range of practical difficulties when undertaking outdoor journeys as pedestrians. Over the past decade, a variety of assistive devices have been researched and developed to help BVIP navigate more safely and independently. In~addition, research in overlapping domains are addressing the problem of automatic environment interpretation using computer vision and machine learning, particularly deep learning, approaches. Our aim in this article is to present a comprehensive review of research directly in, or relevant to, assistive outdoor navigation for BVIP. We breakdown the navigation area into a series of navigation phases and tasks. We then use this structure for our systematic review of research, analysing articles, methods, datasets and current limitations by task. We also provide an overview of commercial and non-commercial navigation applications targeted at BVIP. Our review contributes to the body of knowledge by providing a comprehensive, structured analysis of work in the domain, including the state of the art, and guidance on future directions. It will support both researchers and other stakeholders in the domain to establish an informed view of research progress

A framework for accessible m-government implementation

The great popularity and rapid diffusion of mobile technologies at worldwide level has also been recognised by the public sector, leading to the creation of m-government. A major challenge for m-government is accessibility – the provision of an equal service to all citizens irrespective of their psychical, mental or technical capabilities. This paper sketches the profiles of six citizen groups: Visually Impaired, Hearing Impaired, Motor Impaired, Speech Impaired, Cognitive Impaired and Elderly. M-government examples that target the aforementioned groups are discussed and a framework for accessible m-government implementation with reference to the W3C Mobile Web Best Practices is proposed

Modeling Expertise in Assistive Navigation Interfaces for Blind People

Evaluating the impact of expertise and route knowledge on task performance can guide the design of intelligent and adaptive navigation interfaces. Expertise has been relatively unexplored in the context of assistive indoor navigation interfaces for blind people. To quantify the complex relationship between the user's walking patterns, route learning, and adaptation to the interface, we conducted a study with 8 blind participants. The participants repeated a set of navigation tasks while using a smartphone-based turn-by-turn navigation guidance app. The results demonstrate the gradual evolution of user skill and knowledge throughout the route repetitions, significantly impacting the task completion time. In addition to the exploratory analysis, we take a step towards tailoring the navigation interface to the user's needs by proposing a personalized recurrent neural net work-based behavior model for expertise level classification

Smart Path Guidance Mobile Aid for Visually Disabled Persons

A traditional blind-navigation cane mostly used by a visually impaired person is not very appropriate mainly due to narrow search area. While a conventional cane warns of changes along the ground, it does not warn of other walking hazards and objects above a person’s waist. There are many electronics based blind-navigation devices employ a voice guided GPS (global positioning system) and/or complex high-order processor. It is apparent that the costs of these devices are too high that a common visually impaired people cannot afford them. In addition, a kind of previous arts is difficult to handle due to the weight, volume and functions incubated with basic purpose. Therefore, these types of advanced navigation systems are difficult to be commercialized. The purpose of this research is to design and develop a smart path guidance system for the blind and visually impaired, particularly the mobile aid to carry by hand, contains a smart sensor logic system. An appropriate model has developed for the selected design with embedding fuzzy logic decision. A presented solution is also tested for various condition inputs to verify the system’s behavior. Through several experiments, the sensors are calibrated to increase the accuracy of decision. The presented prototype enables the blind person to walk freely in an unfamiliar environment

Design and data analysis for a belt-for-blind for visual impaired people

This research designs a new walking support system for the blind people in order to navigate without any assistance from others or using any guide cane. With the help of this device, a user can move independently and able to walk freely almost like a normal person. In this research, a belt for blind wearable around the waist is equipped with four ultrasonic sensors and one sharp infrared sensor. A mathematical model has been developed based on the specifications of the ultrasonic sensors to identify optimum orientation of the sensors for detecting stairs and holes. These sensors are connected to a microcontroller along with a laptop so that we can get sufficient data for analysing terrain on the walkway of the blind. Based on the analyses of the acquired data, we have developed an algorithm capable of classifying various types of obstacles. The developed belt for blind device is superior in terms of less weight less, able to detect stair and hole, low cost, less power consumption, adjustable, less training and availability of actuation systems. It was tested and implemented successfully to address all those issues