INTELLIGENT CANE FOR VISUALLY IMPAIRED WITH AUDITORY

GUIDANCE
DR.U. B. MAHADEVASWAMY
Associate professor, Department of E&C, SJCE ubms_sjce@yahoo.co.in
Mysuru, Karnataka, 570006, India.

SUNIL KUMAR H.T.

Department of E&C, SJCE, sunilht1990@gmail.com
Mysuru, Karnataka, 570006, India.

ABSTRACT: Vision is the most important part of human physiology and without it, it would be
very difficult for them to survive. Mobility for the blinds is a great problem. In this project the use
of a traditional walking cane and guide dogs were eliminated and hence introduce a modern
navigation system with the rapid advancement of modern technology. This intelligent cane meant
for the visually impaired facilitates obstacle detection and warns the person of an impending
obstacles well before he comes in contact with it. In addition to that this project intend to provide
navigation for the person in between different locations of a pre-loaded map that includes routine
locations the person would visit in his day to day life.ref.Hirahara(2005).

KEYWORDS: Detection algorithm, robot control and motion, robot sensing systems,
Microcontrollers, software libraries, digital audio player, ultrasonic transducers, electric motors,
driver circuit.

PREVIOUS WORK

The following papers from various archives were referred, which are related to this work.
i. In ref.Debnatj N, Hailani the authors discuss the idea of localizing the Navigation for blind and
providing it for indoor application. They have used carrier space RF signals to identify the various
location.
ii. In ref.Johann & Iwan the authors suggest an intelligent SONAR system that not only detect the
obstacle but steers the person away from it by guiding the stick.
iii. In ref.MAKS SURGUY. the author explains how to play WAV audio files with Arduino Uno
and how to access the files from the Micro SD card.
iv. In ref.Hirahara(2005). the authors worked on the Development of the navigation system using
the guide line in which white can sense color using the color sensor if the blind person is moving
away from the line.

INTRODUCTION
Blinds have been using walking sticks for their mobility purposes. In addition some of them using
guide-dog for their mobility. Due to the development of modern technologies many different types
of devices are available which allows us to assist the blinds. There are millions of people in the
world who are visually impaired and this is the work we are doing here to serve those category.
PROPOSED WORK

At present some of modules have been completed successfully that collaborates with the entire
project. Implementations and use of some of the modules were also
successful:ref.Soeda(2004)..The Fig.1 shows the block diagram of our work.

Fig.1 Block diagram

Ultrasonic sensors
A device which works in such a way as a RADAR and SONAR. In fact, ultrasonic sensors mimic
bats and other animal's natural ability to use ultrasonic frequencies, then detect the ultrasonic
sound waves as they bounce off the objects and return to the sensor. They are almost always to
measure speed or direction and are efficiently at determining positions. . These devices typically
transmit a short burst of ultrasonic sound toward a target, which reflects the sound back to the
sensor. The system then measures the time for the echo to return to the sensor and computes the
distance to the target using the speed of sound in the medium. Ultrasonic sensors depend on two
separate devices: an ultrasonic transducer and a detector. An ultrasonic transducer is any device
that converts energy into an ultrasonic frequency. The detector is also made of a piezoelectric
crystal, but produces a voltage when an ultrasonic frequency comes in contact with it, effectively
producing the opposite results. A sensor calculates the time that it takes in between broadcasting
the ultrasonic frequency and receiving the incoming waves. ref.Debnatj N, Hailani.

Keypad interfacing
Keypads are one of the most widely used inputs devices which are organised in a matrix of rows
and columns. When a key is pressed, a row and a column makes contact; otherwise there is no
connection between rows and columns. To make sure the key is pressed we first make zero to rows
and check the status of the columns individually. For instances we make the first row zero and
then check if the first column has a zero. In case it does have a zero, the pressed lies in the first
row and the first column. Otherwise we proceed to check the next column. This keypad is
basically used to send a particular signal which is stored in the wav player and through the RF
transreciever the modules can communicate with the bot. ref.structables.com.

Library functions
1) SD library:- The SD library allows for reading from and writing to SD cards, e.g. on the
Arduino Ethernet Shield. It is built on sdfatlib by William Greiman. The library supports FAT16
and FAT32 file systems on standard SD cards and SDHC cards. It uses short 8.3 names for files.

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The communication between the microcontroller and the SD card uses SPI, which takes place on
digital pins 11, 12, and 13 (on most Arduino boards) or 50, 51, and 52 (Arduino
Mega).ref.http://arduino.cc/

2) Keypad Library:- Keypad is a library for using matrix style keypads with the Arduino. As of
version 3.0 it now supports multiple key presses. It was created to the code by hiding the pinMode
and digital Read calls for the user. Keypad library is part of the hard ware Abstraction libraries.

3) Virtual Wire:- Virtual Wire is an Arduino library that provides features to send short messages,
without addressing, retransmit or acknowledgment, a bit like UDP over wireless, using ASK
(amplitude shift keying). Supports a number of inexpensive radio transmitters and receivers. This
library allows you to send and receive data byte" and string easily.
D.I2C communication

Keypads are one of the most widely used inputs devices which are organised in a matrix of rows
and columns. When a key is pressed, a row and a column makes contact; otherwise there is no
connection between rows and columns. To make sure the key is pressed we first make zero to rows
and check the status of the columns individually. For instances we make the first row zero and
then check if the first column has a zero. In case it does have a zero, the pressed lies in the first
row and the first column. Otherwise we proceed to check the next column. This keypad is
basically used to send a particular signal which is stored in the wav player and through the RF
transreciever the modules can communicate with the bot. ref.structables.com value generated
respective commands which is stored in the SD card is transmitted to the other arduino. There is
library called Wire.h is available on arduino software which is used for I2C Communication.

BOT movement
Bot uses two motors and L293D driverref.structables.com.Fig 2 shows the circuit diagram of the
L239D driver and the associated connection with the motors and supply.

Table 1:Motor driver combination

Inpu Input Input Input Motors Output Movement
1 2 3 4 Right Left
LOW HIGH HIGH LOW Straight Straight Straight
LOW HIGH LOW LOW Straight No move Right Turn
LOW LOW HIGH LOW No Move Straight Left Turn
HIGH LOW LOW HIGH Reverse Reverse Backward

The Table 1.shows the different combinations of input and respective movements of the motor.

HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS

i. Arduino Uno.
ii. Ultrasonic sensors GH 311.
iii. 433 MHz RF Rx Tx with 8 bit decoder and encoder.
iv. 4x4 Matrix Keypad
v. Earphones.
vi. SDHC card module.
vii. Bot for base movement and to mount the sensors and control block.

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 Fig.2 Circuit diagram of motor driver

SOFTWARE REQUIREMENT

i. Arduino IDE ref.http://arduino.cc/ref.structables.com

RESULTS

The system works by initially asking the user whether he wants to roam free or take up a route
assistant. The user can provide his input through the keypad provided. If he chooses to free roam
the Bot will allow him to pull the system with him while constantly monitoring the ultrasonic
sensor, looking for an object. If he chooses to go to a particular destination, the bot will guide him
through the route by providing auditory guidance and the wheels of the bot move accordingly. So
the user can use the system in multiple modes and the auditory feedback makes it all more
ecient. The engineering model of the system is shown in Figure 3.

FUTURE ENHANCEMENTS

i. Add more locations: The prototype contains only three routine spots for the person to travel.
More locations can be added to increase the usefulness of the system.

ii. Laser Sensors: Laser sensors can be used to increase the accuracy and range of obstacle
detection. This makes the system safer than ever.

iii.Use ASIC: Replace arduinos with Application Specic IC that will reduce the cost of the
system further making it eicient and aordable. In summary there are a lot of advancements in
the eld that can be capitalized on to make the system smarter and reachable to the blind
community.

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 Fig 3. Engineering model of the cane

REFERENCES

An electronically guided walking stick for the blind by Debnath.N; Fac. Coll. of Eng., Univ.
Tenaga Nasional, Malaysia; Hailani, Z.A. ; Jamaludin, S. ; Aljunid, S.A.K.
The GuideCane A Computerized Travel Aid for the Active Guidance of Blind Pedestrians by
Johann Borenstein and Iwan Ulrich The University of Michigan,Advanced Technologies Lab.
http://arduino.cc/
Control your motors with L293D and Arduino blog post at in- structables.com.
How to play WAV audio les with Arduino Uno and MicroSD card blog post by MAKS
SURGUY.
K.Soeda, K.Magatani et al.:Development of the visually impaired person guidance system using
GPS, Proceedings of the 26th Annual International Conference of the IEEEEMBS ,2004
Y.Hirahara, M.Magatani et al.: Development of the navigation system for the visually impaired
The 12th International Conference on Biomedical Engineering ,2005.

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