International Journal of Advanced Research in Engineering and

Technology (IJARET) Volume 1, Issue 1, June- December 2020, pp. 25-

34, Article ID: xxxxx
Available online at http://www.iaeme.com/ijaret.asp
ISSN Print: 0976-6480 and ISSN Online: 0976-6499
© IAEME Publication IJARET

IOT BASED SMART SHOE SYSTEM FOR

THE BLIND
Teja Chava, A.Lohith Sai, A. Tarak Srinivas, M.Siva Kumar
IV B.Tech., Dept of CSE,
Koneru Lakshmaiah Education Foundation,
Andhra Pradesh, India

Mr. Venubabu Rachapudi

Associate Professor, Dept. of CSE, Koneru Lakshmaiah Education Foundation
Andhra Pradesh, India

ABSTRACT
The authors propose a new IoT based Smart shoe system for the blind
made with the help of an ultrasonic sensor paired to an Arduino UNO board.
Internet of things is all about Making Physical stuff communicating with
humans. It is an enabling technology which has a rapid development and
growth in the market. In our India there are almost 40 million blind people
among which 1.6 million are children. Blind people cannot live Independently.
They have to depend on others in many aspects of their life. The Major
problem is when they walk on road. With a stick in hand they cannot detect
every obstacle that comes in their way. The Smart shoe design provides a
long-term solution for the blind to walk on roads independently. The smart
shoe will help the Blind person to reach his destination independently. It is
built using IoT Technology in which the shoe will be embedded with various
sensors, Microcontroller and buzzers. The shoe warns the user by making
noise with the buzzer when he/she walks in front of an obstacle. To improve
the efficiency Smart glasses are designed using IoT which is also embedded
with sensors and helps in detecting the objects by covering a larger area.

Key words: IoT, Arduino UNO, NodeMCU ESP8266, Ultrasonic sensor

___________________________________________________________

http://www.iaeme.com/ijaret.asp 1 editor@iaeme.com
 IoT based Smart Shoe system for the Blind

1. INTRODUCTION
1.1. Internet of Things:
The Internet of Things (IoT) is a system of interrelated computing
devices, mechanical and digital machines, objects, animals or people
that are provided with unique identifiers and the ability to transfer data
over a network without requiring human-to-human or human-to-
computer interaction. “Things” in the IoT sense, is the mixture of
hardware, software, data, and services. “Things” can refer to a wide
variety of devices such as DNA analysis devices for environmental
monitoring, electric clamps in coastal waters, Arduino chips in home
automation and many other. These devices gather useful data with the
help of various existing technologies and share that data between other
devices. IOT technology nowadays is used for many purposes which
make the user’s daily life more comfortable. Internet of Things is
actually the combination of multiple technologies, real time analytics,
machine learning, commodity sensors, and embedded systems. These
physical devices are embedded with electronics, Internet connectivity,
and other forms of hardware like sensors. These physical devices can
communicate and interact with others over the Internet, and they can be
remotely monitored and controlled.

1.2. Smart Shoe:

In our India there are almost 40 million blind people among which
1.6 million are children. Blind people cannot live Independently. They
have to depend on others in many aspects of their life. The Major
problem is when they walk on road. With a stick in hand they cannot
detect every obstacle that comes in their way. The Smart shoe design
provides a long-term solution for the blind to walk on roads
independently. The smart shoe will help the Blind person to reach his
destination independently. It is built using IOT Technology in which
the shoe will be embedded with various sensors, Microcontroller and
buzzers. The shoe warns the user by making noise with the buzzer
when he/she walks in front of an obstacle. This wearable smart device
application helps the users or we can say patients to reduce the number
of home visits. This in turn reduces their operational costs. Health
parameters recorded by any devices are now updated instantly in the
application used by doctors. Physicians could monitor patient
conditions remotely and suggest appropriate medicines. Data is secured
at higher rate and kept confidential. Doctors can view consolidated
reports on each individual without any time delays. Using this wearable
technology that consists in IOT, the work becomes easier and the
following result or output is displayed faster.

http://www.iaeme.com/ijaret.asp 2 editor@iaeme.com
 IoT based Smart Shoe system for the Blind

1.3. Smart Glasses:

In our lives, there are many people who are suffering from different
diseases or handicap. According to NCBI (1986), 1.5% of the
population in Saudi Arabia is blind and another 7.8% have vision
difficulties. These people need some help to make their life easier and
better. The main goal of “Smart Glasses” is to help blind people and
people who have vision difficulties by introducing a new technology
that makes them able to walk independently. The functionality of smart
glasses is similar to smart shoe i.e. it helps or improves the efficiency
of detecting objects. For this there are sensors attached to the
spectacles which are on the smart shoe and has the same functionality
i.e. detecting the objects. This smart glasses design will help in
maximizing efficiency by covering the larger and taller area of
detecting obstacles.

2. PROPOSED SYSTEM
2.1. Smart shoe:

Fig 1: Block diagram of the proposed smart shoe module

The system we have designed consists of sensors and vibrators for

sensing the surrounding environment for obstacles and giving feedback
to the blind person, about the position of the nearest obstacles in range.
The idea is to extend the senses of the user through this after a training
period, without any sensible effort. We propose a system consisting of
smart shoes for the visually impaired people. Hardware will be fixed in
the user’s shoes. When the user will wear the shoes and travel
somewhere, sensors attached with the hardware will sense obstacles
and vibrators will vibrate for left/right turn through path. Also, a buzzer
will be used for alerting the user that the obstacle is nearing
him/her. Using smart shoe, blind people need not to be worried for
dependence on others for mobility. This paper describes the
architecture and discusses the possible benefits of the system we have
designed. In this work, system designed is cheap and a user friendly
smart blind guidance system. It is implemented to improve the mobility

http://www.iaeme.com/ijaret.asp 3 editor@iaeme.com
 IoT based Smart Shoe system for the Blind

of both blind and visually impaired people in various areas, that too,
without depending on others. Sensors will be used for detecting
obstacles and vibrators will vibrate according to the direction (i.e at the
left, right or front). Right vibrator will vibrate when right turn should
be taken and left vibrator will vibrate when left turn is to be taken. The
front vibrator will vibrate if the person needs to move forward and all
the four vibrators will vibrate when the person needs to stop. Our
approach is to make an easy hands free and an user-friendly application
to make visually impaired person to travel wherever he wants,
independently and safely.

2.2. Smart Glasses:

Fig 2: Block diagram of the proposed smart glasses module

• In this module the secondary radar is embedded into the spectacles and
positioned in such a way that it covers the area in front of the user at the
head level.
• This module also has two sub modules, one being the configuration of
the primary radar and the second being setting parameters for the
module.
• This smart glasses can be powered by a set of batteries but in order to
reduce the weight of the glasses power can be drawn by the piezo
electric generators from the shoe as well.
• This is also integrated to a Bluetooth hearing device which can override
the commands given by the primary radar in case there in any
obstruction at head level of the user which cannot be detected by the
primary radar on the smart shoe.

http://www.iaeme.com/ijaret.asp 4 editor@iaeme.com
 IoT based Smart Shoe system for the Blind

3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Fig 3: Time VS Distance curve formed in the ThingSpeak Cloud by the Smart
Shoe Module.

This is the graph formed by the ultrasonic sensor in the ThingSpeak cloud on
completion of the experiment. The graph represents the distance of objects in
front of the person which is sensed by the ultrasonic sensor. Using the signal
received when the distance is less than 100cm, the buzzer and Bluetooth module
are triggered which warns the user of the oncoming obstacles. A spreadsheet is
also created with the distance values recorded in it so that it can be used as input
of a machine learning algorithm which can be used to map indoor environment
which can be useful in future.

Fig 4: Status of the system in case of no obstacles in front of it

The status of the proposed system in idle mode when there is no obstacle in
front of it and the buzzer remains silent which means that the user can move
forward safely.

http://www.iaeme.com/ijaret.asp 5 editor@iaeme.com
 IoT based Smart Shoe system for the Blind

Fig 5: Status of the system in case of obstacles in front of it

The status of the proposed system in usage mode when there is an obstacle in
front of it and the buzzer rings and the Bluetooth module guides the user to
avoid the obstacle and he/she can move around safely.

4. FUTURE SCOPE

Ø GPS can help blind people to get source and destination route information.
Ø Finds the shortest and the best path with real time co-ordinates.
Ø Finding the exact position will be easy with GPS in case of emergency.
Ø A camera module can be added to the glasses which can map the entire
place in front of the user and machine learning algorithms can be applied for
better assessment of the areas such as downstairs which cannot be detected
by the ultrasonic sensors alone.

5. CONCLUSION
In the proposed project will be developing two different systems the first one being
the smart shoe and the second one being the smart glasses. We will integrate these
two modules and make them work in tandem in order to eliminate the disadvantages
caused by the existing systems such as low area coverage, energy issues, false alarms
etc. In this system we are also deploying piezoelectric panels to generate energy while
the user is walking and this can eliminate the need to charge or change the batteries
frequently, which is a general problem faced in the entire IoT technology. The
proposed system will be designed in such a way that even if one of the system fails
due to any reason the second system will work independently and still carry out the
task of finding obstacles without any hinderance. The proposed system will also
reduce the number of wires as we will be using wireless communication protocols
such as Bluetooth, Zigbee and WiFi for the modules to communicate with each other.
This system will be of great use to the Blind in helping them commute indoors as
well as outdoors without any help which will make them self sufficient and also they

http://www.iaeme.com/ijaret.asp 6 editor@iaeme.com
 IoT based Smart Shoe system for the Blind

don’t need to have any technical knowledge to operate this system. There will be a lot
of provisions for future enhancement for the system and integration of additional
sensors or other components will be very easy for future enhancements.

6. REFERENCES
[1] A. Balleri, K. Woodbridge ; K. Chetty, “Frequency-agile non-coherent ultrasound
radar for collection of micro-Doppler signatures,” 2017 IEEE RadarCon (RADAR),
Kansas City, pp. 045 – 048, May 201, 10.1109/RADAR.2011.5960496.

[2] Feng Lan, Guangtao Zhai, Wei Lin “Lightweight smart glass system with audio aid
for visually impaired people” ,TENCON,IEEE,Region 10 Conference, 2016.

[3] Yadav, E.P., Mittal, E.A. and Yadav, H., 2018, February. IoT: Challenges and
Issues in Indian Perspective. In 2018 3rd International Conference On Internet of
Things: Smart Innovation and Usages (IoT-SIU) (pp. 1-5). IEEE.

[4] Nitin Naik, Choice of effective messaging protocols for IoT systems: MQTT,
CoAP, AMQPand HTTP. IEEE International Systems Engineering Symposium,
Vienna, pp. 1-7, 2017.

[5] Paolo Bellavista, Alessandro Zanni, Towards Better Scalability for IoT-Cloud
Interactions via Combined Exploitation of MQTT and CoAP, IEEE 2nd International
Forum on Research and Technologies for Society and Industry Leveraging a better
tomorrow (RTSI),2016.

[6] Mohan Kumar Ch, Shaik Shahbaz, Manikanta Varma, Tanu Shri, International Journal of
Mechanical Engineering and Technology (IJMET) Volume 8, Issue 12, December 2017, pp.
529–535, Article ID: IJMET_08_12_053

[7] R.L.R. Lokesh Babu1, D Rambabu2, A. Rajesh Naidu3, R. D. Prasad4, P. Gopi Krishna5 ,
IoT Enabled Solar Power Monitoring System, International Journal of Engineering
&Technology, 7 (3.12) (2018) 526-530

[8] M. Chandan, Srinivas.Malladi*, M. Nishitha, K. Sindhu Priya, Y. Sree Lekha, Automatic

gas booking system using IoT, International Journal of Engineering & Technology, 7 (2.8)
(2018) 235-238

[9] Saranyakumar Chigurupati Ravi Teja Vallamsetti Yogesh Misra Ragipati Karthik
Intelligent vehicle pollution monitoring using IoT, International Journal of Engineering &
Technology 7 (2.7) (2018) 376-378

[10] P. Gopi Krishna, K. Sreenivasa Ravi, K Hari Kishore, K KrishnaVeni, K. N. Siva Rao,
R. D. Prasad, Design and development of bi-directional IoT gateway using ZigBee and Wi-Fi
technologies with MQTT protocol, International Journal of Engineering & Technology, 7
(2.8) (2018) 125-129

http://www.iaeme.com/ijaret.asp 7 editor@iaeme.com
 IoT based Smart Shoe system for the Blind

[11] A. Gopi 1 *, M. Kameswara Rao , Survey of privacy and security issues in IoT,
International Journal of Engineering & Technology, 7 (2.7) (2018) 293-296

[12] P.Gupta,KVV Satyanarayan, DD Shah, IoT multitasking: Development of hybrid

execution service oriented architecture (HESOA) to reduce response time for iot application,
Journal of Theoretical and Applied Information Technology 96(5):1398-1407

[13] Ahmad Roihan, Tri Kuntoro Priyambodo, Ahmad Ashari, "A Survey on Protocols for
Internet of Things", Science and Technology (ICST) 2019 5th International Conference on,
vol. 1, pp. 1-6, 2019.

[14] Sarah Jaafari, Areej Alhasani, Ebtihal alghosn, Rehab alfahhad, Saad M Almutairi,
"Certain Investigations on IoT system for COVID-19", Computing and Information
Technology (ICCIT-1441) 2020 International Conference on, pp. 1-4, 2020.

[15] N. Naik, "Choice of effective messaging protocols for iot systems: Mqtt coap amqp and
http", 2017 IEEE international systems engineering symposium (ISSE). IEEE, pp. 1-7, 2017.

http://www.iaeme.com/ijaret.asp 8 editor@iaeme.com