TRIBHUVANUNIVERSITY

InstituteofEngineering

FinalYearProjectProposalon

"BRAILLETUTOR"
Submittedto DepartmentofElectronicsandComputerEngineering PulchowkCampus,I.O.E July9,2009

Submittedby
SAMPURNABHATTACHAN 062BEX437] [ SUSHILADHIKARI SWAPNILRANJIT VIVEKRAJSHRESTHA

[062BEX446] [062BEX447] [062BEX448]

To, Mr.SurendraShrestha (ProjectCoordinator) DepartmentofElectronicsandComputerEngineering, IOE,PulchowkCampus,Lalitpur Subject:ProposalSubmission Sir, This is a proposal for final year project under the courseEG777EX offered byDepartmentofElectronicsandComputerEngineering,PulchowkCampus,IOE.This proposal is submitted to thedepartment referring tothenotice publishedinthedepartmentnoticeboard. Our proposalentitledBRAILLE TUTOR proposes to build a computer based system thatisabletoteachBraillescripttoblindpeople. Herebytheproposalissubmittedforyourkindperusalandapproval. Yours Sincerely, SAMPURNABHATTACHAN[062BEX437] SUSHILADHIKARI SWAPNILRANJIT VIVEKRAJSHRESTHA [062BEX446] [062BEX447] [062BEX448]

 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT We would like to express our sincere thanks to the Department of Electronics and Computer Department for providing us the opportunity to explore our interest and ideasinthefieldofengineeringthroughthisproject. The course "Innovation for future team leaders of BE project" organized by Dr. Jyoti Tandukargaveuschancetopresentandrefineourprojectideas.Wewouldliketothank himfororganizingthiscourseandacknowledgehiscontributioninmakinguscapableof pursuing this noble project.We are also very thankful to Mr Uttam Mali and Mr PradhumnaLalShrestha. WeareequallyindebtedtoourprojectcoordinatorDr.SurendraShresthaforproviding suggestions and guidelines for the project preparation. Finally, We would like to offer our gratitude to everyone who have directly or indirectly inspired us for this project.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgement Abstract

1.Introduction1 2.Literaturereview2 3.Methodology.3 3.1HardwareEnvironment3 3.2SoftwareEnvironment..4 4.WorkDivision..8 5.ApplicationandScope..9 6.Projectschedule..10 7.Bibiliography...11

 ABSTRACT

Braille Tutor provides a beginner level platform for the blind people wanting to learn Braille characters for the first time. Braille Tutor will have mainly two parts: Voice to Braille conversion and Braille to Voice conversion. It will have microphone for voice input, 3X2 matrix buttons for Braille, PC for processing data and speaker for voice output. ForVoicetoBraille,weintendtousecharacterrecognitiontechniqueforidentifyingthe alphabetandBraillepatternshallbegeneratedonthebuttons.Forthedetectionofthe spokencharacter,wewillperformtheanalysisinfrequencydomainwhereamplitudeof the voice frequencies shall be compared with the amplitudes that are already in the database and whichever has the best matched condition is our character. For the character recognition technique, we will use Conventional Hidden Markov Model (HMM)inMATLAB.OurfinalprojectwillbepresentedinC#orJava. ForBrailletoVoice,wewillcheckwhetherthepressedbuttonsmatchwiththeBraille characters.Forthis,wewillcomparethepressedpatternwiththeonesinthedatabase andifmatches,thensoundwillbeheardnotifyingthematchedcharacters.

 1.INTRODUCTION: ThepurposeofourprojectistodevelopaBRAILLETUTORfortheblindpeoplewhodonot know about the script in Braille. The computer based tutor will be able to teach the alphabetsinthebrailletotheblindwiththehelpofacomputerandatutorboardwhichwe intend to develop with some buttons which can be raised or pressed in different possible patternsandarrangementstoresemblethealphabetsintheBRAILLE.Weareintendingthat ourprojectshouldbeabletoreceivethevoicecommandsofdifferentalphabetsfromthe userandgeneratethecorrespondingBraillepatternoftheraisedandpressedbuttons on theboardoftheBRAILLETUTOR.Theprojectisdefinitelybeanaidtotheblindpeopleto learn Braille in an efficient and effective way. This will obviously help the blind people to carrytheirfurtherstudiesinBraille.Andmoreovertheprojectwillmaketheblindslearnthe BRAILLEwithoutahumantutor.Thetutorwillalsohaveasecondphaseinwhichtheblind people can check or test themselves for the alphabets they have learnt in BRAILLE by pressing the buttons in the BRAILLE TUTOR Board in the Braille script patterns which will generateSpeechofequivalentalphabet'spronunciationthroughspeaker. The basic idea behind creating a BRAILLE TUTOR is to use our knowledge in creating something really usefulfor the needy and disabled people to facilitate their lives to some extent. We really intend to learn and explore the technology, the mathematics and the electronics to create something useful for those who are disabled and are deprived from muchmoreinthelife.Theprojectwillbeusefulforustolearnandexperienceourfieldof electronicsandwillhaveagreatreallifeimportanceintrainingtheBlindstoo.
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2.LITERATUREREVIEW: TheBraillesystemisamethodthatiswidelyusedbyblindpeopletoreadandwrite.Braille wasdevisedin1821byLouisBraille,aFrenchman.EachBraillecharacterorcellismadeupof sixdotpositions,arrangedinarectanglecontainingtwocolumnsofthreedotseach.Adot mayberaisedatanyofthesixpositionstoformsixtyfour(26)permutations,includingthe arrangementinwhichnodotsareraised. ThereareotherBrailletutorinwhicheachlettersarewritteninseparatecells.Blind aid is a portable tool (tutor) used as a learning instrument that helps the user decipher Braille without constantly going to the Braille dictionary. The simple and efficient constructionofthisdevicemaymakeitscommerciallyuseinthefuture.Thisdeviceuses computer interface which makes it possible for the computer processing of the written statementsaswelltoavoidtheuseofmemorydevicesandmicrocontroller. As that of Braille system a blind aid tool had six buttons that will rise and fall accordingtothealphabet.FeelingontheraisedbuttonsstudentcanlearnabouttheBraille language.SomepatternfortheBraillealphabetsareas:

Inwhichthepushedbuttonsareshownbydarkspots.Thewritingmechanicsissameas thatofthestandardBraillesystemsothisBrailletutorteachesthealphabetsinthestandard format.

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3.METHODOLOGY: Theseveraltaskofthisprojectwillbeassignedtoeachteammemberonthebasisoftheir interest. Weekly meeting will be held to assess the status of each member and propose restructuring of plan whenever necessary. Project documentation will be performed by respectivememberattheendofeachtask.Regulardiscussionwithprojectmentorwillbe heldduringprojectprogress. Ourprojectimplementsbothhardwareandsoftwareportion. 3.1HardwareEnvironment: The hardware environment in our project consists of a six button Braille board, small motors, optocoupler, PC, speaker, microphone, analog to digital converter, data link betweenPCandperipherals. PC: It provides the Graphical User interface. It processes the voice signals and identifies character. Brailleboard:Itisthesixbuttonsboard.Thebuttonsarearrangedin3x2matrix.Thisislike userseye.ItconvertsBrailletoBinarydata(B2B)sothecomputercanprocessthedata.The buttons can move up and down and the position of up and down buttons defines the character in Braille. When the user presses the buttons down the computer identifies the character and output is heard from speaker. Again, when user spells character through microphone, the computer recognizes the character and ultimately displays it in Braille boardwiththehelpofmotorsattachedtothebuttons.So,Brailleboardisbothinputand outputdevice. Optocoupler:Inelectronics,anoptocouplerisadevicethatusesashortopticaltransmission pathtotransferanelectronicsignalsbetweenelementsofacircuit,typicallyatransmitter and a receiver, while keeping them electrically isolated. Since the electrical signal is convertedtoalightbeam,transferred,thenconvertedbacktoanelectricalsignal,thereis no need for electrical connection between the source and destination circuits. We need optocouplerasweareinterfacingmotorwithourpc.Theparallelportmaygetdamagedif notisolatedfrommotor. Parallel Port interfacing: A parallel port is a type of interface found on computers for connectingvariousperipherals.ItisalsoknownasaprinterportorCentronicsport.Dueto the simplicity of its implementation, it is often used for interfacing with custommade peripherals.InversionsofWindowsthatdidnotusetheWindowsNTkernel(aswellasDOS and some other operating systems), programs could access the parallel port with simple outportb() and inportb() subroutine commands. We use parallel port interfacing in our project. Microphone/Speaker:Wewillusehighqualitymicrophoneandspeakerforsoundinputand output.
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3.2SoftwareEnvironment: MatlabProgram:Itisacommerciallyavailablemathematicalsoftwarepackage.Itiswidely used in academia and industry because of its advanced capabilities and a simple user interface. Matlab also has builtin toolboxes that contain commonly used engineering functions. So we will be using Matlab for our testing purpose.It will be our preliminary programminglanguage. MainProgrammingLanguage:OurmainprogramminglanguagewillbeJavaorC#. CharacterRecognitionModel: Thefirststepofdigitalprocessingistoconvertthetimedomainsignaltofrequencydomain. The Fourier analyzer calculates the pattern of amplitude for all frequencies in the audible rangeandthesesamplepatternsarecomparedwiththesamplesinthedatabaseandgives bestmatchedcharacter. ConventionalHiddenMarkovmodel(HMM) Modern generalpurpose speech recognition systems are generally based on Hams. These are statistical models which output a sequence of symbols or quantities. One possible reasonwhyHamsareusedinspeechrecognitionisthataspeechsignalcouldbeviewedasa piecewisestationarysignalorashorttimestationarysignal.Thatis,onecouldassumeina shorttime in the range of 10 milliseconds, speech could be approximated as a stationary process.


Mic

GeneralBlockDiagramofProposedSystem 3X2matrix
Note:

ADC

PC
Optocoupler Speaker DC motor

:PathforVoicetoBrailleConversion
:PathforBrailletoVoiceConversion

 SpeechInput Digitization Spectralcontent extraction Training

Mode

Recognition(x1)
Is

StorageUnit

Nox2 DisplayonBraille FlowchartofSpeechtoBrailleconversion

(x1x2)<th

Yes NotRecognized Recognized


BrailleInput

Identifythepattern
Doesitmatch withany characterin database?

No

Yes

Wrongpatternpressed

FlowchartofBrailletoSpeechConversion

Playthroughspeaker

4.WORKDIVISION

Work Division

Sampurna Bhattachan

Swapnil Ranjit

Vivek Raj Shrestha

Sushil Adhikari

Matlab, C#

C#, SQL

Matlab,C#

Matlab, C#

Mic Interfacing

Database Management

Port Programming

Braille Board Design

Speech Recognition Algorithm(Hidden Markov Model)

Graphics User Interface

Braille Board Interfacing

Braille Board Interfacing

 5.APPLICATIONANDSCOPE: TheprojectispurposedtoserveandhelptheblindpeopletolearntheNepaliBrailleScript withoutahumantutor.Sotheprojectwillbeveryusefulforthehomeusersaswellasthe SchoolsfortheBlind.Wearemakingtheprojectpracticalasmuchaspossiblesothatthe tutormaybeuseddirectlytoteachtheBRAILLEtotheblinds.Wedonotexpectourproject tobeusedforcommercialpurposebuttoservetheblindpeopleasaLearningaid.

6.PROJECTSCHEDULE:
Belowisourtentativeprojectschedule:

Taskname

Jul

Aug

Sept

Oct

Nov

Dec

Jan

Feb

Proposalwriting

ProjectResearch Learningandcodingabout CharacterRecognition

AlgorithmDevelopment

Identifyingthecomponenttobuy

Motorcouplingandportinterfacing DesigningandImplementingthecircuit

TestingandDebugging

Systemintegration

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FinalTesting Documentationandfinalreport preparation

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7.BIBLIOGRAPHY:
www.wikipedia.org www.google.com

www.uioe.sourceforge.net JohnFry,SanJoseStateUniversity:DigitalSignalProcessing NepaliSpeechRecognition,060BCTProject,IOE

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