A navigation aid for visually impaired people

Date

2020-05

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Abstract

The United Nation’s 2018 report states that about 1.3 billion people suffer some form of visual impairment with 36 million of them being blind. The number of blind people is projected to reach 115 million by 2050. Some of these people find it difficult to move around because they have difficulty identifying their location, orientation and paths leading to their destinations in unknown territories. While on the road, they have difficulty detecting and avoiding obstacles along the road. The white cane and guide dogs have been popularly used by blind people to guide them along the road and help them avoid obstacles. However, white cane and dogs cannot communicate to the victim, his or her current location or tell him or her the kind of obstacle identified. This report proposed a low-cost system that uses raspberry pi, camera, GPS receiver, ultrasonic and infrared sensors to help the user identify his or her current location, guide him or her through a path while detecting and avoiding obstacles. The system also names obstacles to the user to give him or her more perspective about the surrounding. In this report, only the location identification and path following are implemented and tested and the results showed a mix of true and false turns.

Description

Capstone Project submitted to the Department of Engineering, Ashesi University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Engineering, May 2020

Keywords

navigation system, persons with disabilities (PWDs), blind

Citation

DOI