SMART BLIND STICK

A PROJECT REPORT

Submitted by

MITHUN FLETCHER S 20TUEC114

MOHAMED KASIM RAZVI K A 20TUEC119
NAVANEETHAN D 20TUEC127
In partial fulfillment for the award of the
degree of
BACHELOR OF ENGINEERING
in
ELECTRONICS AND COMMUNICATION ENGINEERING

SRI KRISHNA COLLEGE OF TECHNOLOGY

(An Autonomous Institution, Affiliated to
Anna University,Chennai)
KOVAIPUDUR,COIMBATORE-641042.

ANNA UNIVERSITY : CHENNAI 600 025

MAY 2022
 BONAFIDECERTIFICATE
• Certified that this project report title “SMART BLIND STICK” is the
bonafide work of “ MOHAMED KASIM RAZVI K A,
NAVANEETHAN D, MITHUN FLETCHER S ” who carried out
the project work under my supervision.

SIGNATURE SIGNATURE

Dr.G.M.Tamilselvan, M.E.,Ph.D., Ms. S.Thenmozhi,

Professor and Head of the Department,
Department of Electronics and
Communication Engineering.
Sri Krishna College of Technology,
Technology, Coimbatore - 641042.
Professor of the Department,
Department of Electronics and
Communication Engineering.
Sri Krishna College of
Coimbatore - 641042.

Submitted for the project work viva-voce held on

 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

First and foremost, I thank the Lord Almighty who paved the path for our
walk and showered his gracious blessing throughout the course of the project.
We extend our sincere thanks to DR.G.M.TAMILSELVAN M.E.,Ph.D.,
Professor and Head of the Department, Electronics and Communication
Engineering, Sri Krishna College of Technology, Coimbatore for his
encouragement and inspiration. We also thank him for his valuable
guidance and suggestions in all aspects that aided us to ameliorate our
skills.
We are greatly indebted to our Project Coordinator and Assistant
professor, MR. M. NAVIN KUMAR., Electronics and Communication
Engineering, Sri Krishna College of Technology, Coimbatore and also
our Project guide Ms. S. THENMOZHI, Professor, Electronics and
Communication Engineering, Sri Krishna College of Technology,
Coimbatore for her valuable guidance and suggestions in all aspects that
aided us to ameliorate our skills.
Home is the backbone of every success and our humble salutations to our
beloved parents who inspired, motivated and supports us throughout the
course of project. We also extend our sincere thanks to all the faculty
members of Electronics and Communication Engineering department
friends who have rendered their valuable help in completing this project
successfully.
 ABSTRACT

This project describes ultrasonic blind walking stick with the use of arduino. according

to who, 30 million peoples are permanently blind and 285 billion peoples with vision

impairment. if you notice them, you can very well know about it they can’t walk without

the help of other. one has to ask guidance to reach their destination. they have to face more

struggles in their life daily life. using this blind stick, a person can walk more confidently.

This stick detects the object in front of the person and give response to the user either by

vibrating or through command. so, the person can walk without any fear. this device will be

best solution to overcome their difficulties.

Blind stick is an innovation which helps the blinds people to navigate with speed and

confidence by detecting the nearby obstacles using the help of ultrasonic waves and notify

them with buzzer sound. They only need to hold the stick. The intensity of rate of beeping

increases with decrease in distance and this is a fully automated device.

 TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER TITLE PAGE
No.
No.
ABSTRACT Iv
LIST OF TABLES Vii
LIST OF FIGURES Viii

1 INTRODUCTION 1
1.1 OVERVIEW 7

1.2 NEED FOR THE PROJECT 7

1.3 OBJECTIVE 8
1.4 PROBLEM STATEMENT 8
1.5 ORGANISATION OF REPORT 8

2 EXISTING SYSTEM 9

2.1 INTRODUCTION 9
2.2 SUMMARY 10
3 PROPOSED SYSTEM 11

3.1 INTRODUCTION 11
3.2 FLOWCHART OF THE DESIGNED SYSTEM 12
3.3 COMPONENTS & DESCRIPTION 13
3.4 CODE IMPLEMENTATION
15

3.5 SUMMARY 16

3.6 HARDWARE SYSTEM 17

5 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 18

5.1 INTRODUCTION 19

6 CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORKS 20

 CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

1. OVERVIEW

Visually impaired persons have difficulty to interact and feel their environment.
they have little contact with surroundings. Physical movement is a challenge for
visually impaired persons, because it can become tricky to distinguish obstacles
appearing in front of them, and they are not able to move from one place to another.
They depend on their families for mobility and financial support. Their mobility
opposes them from interacting with people and social activities. In the past, different
systems are designed with limitations without a solid understanding of the nonvisual
perception. Researchers have spent the decades to develop an intelligent and smart
stick to assist and alert visually impaired persons from obstacles and give
information about their location. Over the last decades, research has been conducted
for new devices to design a good and reliable system for visually impaired persons
to detect obstacles and warn them at danger places. Smart walking stick is specially
designed to detect obstacles which may help the blind to navigate care-free. The
audio messages will keep the user alert and considerably reduce accidents. A voice
enabled automatic switching is also incorporated to help them in private space as
well. This system presents a concept to provide a smart electronic aid for blind
people, both in public and private space the proposed system contains the ultrasonic
sensor, water sensor, voice play back board, raspberry pi and speaker. the proposed
system detects the obstacle images which are present in outdoor and indoor with the
help of a camera. The stick measures the distance between the objects and smart
walking stick by using an ultrasonic sensor. when any objects or obstacles come in
range of an ultrasonic sensor and it make buzzer sound.

2. NEED FOR THE PROJECT

Visually impaired persons have difficulty to interact and feel their environment. They have
little contact with surroundings. Physical movement is a challenge for visually impaired
persons, because it can become tricky to distinguish obstacles appearing in front of them,
and they are not able to move from one place to another. The smart stick for the blind as
the name suggests is a device for the visually impaired to guide the user to respective
destination and avoiding to collide with the obstacles. It uses two ultrasonic sensors to
detect the depth below or the obstacles in between.
3. OBJECTIVE

The main objective of this is to provide an application for blind people to

detect the obstacles in various directions, detecting pits and manholes on the ground
to make free to walk. in an innovative stick is designed for the visually disabled
people for their easy navigation.

4. PROBLEM STATEMENT

Sighted people can navigate environments by primarily relying upon their

visual senses to find their way. Individuals with visual impairments have to rely
upon the rest of their senses (e.g., touch, sound) for navigating their environment,
resulting in reduced mobility. Unfamiliar environments are especially challenging as
it is difficult for a person to build a mental map of their surroundings using non-
visual feedback.

5. ORGANISATION OF REPORT

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 2: EXISTING SYSTEM

CHAPTER 3: PROPOSED SYSTEM

CHAPTER 4:RESULT AND DISCUSSION

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION

CHAPTER 6:FUTURE WORKS

 CHAPTER 2

EXISTING SYSTEM

2.1INTRODUCTION

ETA device has become a revolution over the last few decades to guide a
visually impaired person and to make their life even easier and safer. As the ETAs getting
popular day by day, researcher has been working on this field to make the device even
more light, portable, safe and low cost for better service. An ultrasonic sensor based blind
stick is proposed by Agarwal & Kumar in 2015 with GPS system, vibrating
motor and a buzzer. As they didn’t give any pictorial view of the stick, so according
to device description it seems to be pretty heavy. Besides that, there was no information
about how long the buzzer & vibrator would be in ON condition. And the
sending sms issue by an illiterate blind person seems to be quite impossible. Another
sensor based smart stick is introduced by Gayathri in 2014. It uses a GPS receiver,
vibrator and a headphone to navigate the blind person. But the device has some limitations
like: - water sensor can detect if the water level is over 0.5 cm, the stick can
detect only four types of obstacles (concrete wall, human body, plastic & cardboard
box) and it is not feasible to provide guidance at high intermittencies. An outdoor
navigating device also came into attention in 2012. The stick uses GPS technology
and a SD card to store information about different locations. But the device cannot
help in indoor environment as there is no GPS signal available. In 1973, an optical
triangulation based laser cane was proposed, which could only detect head-height
obstacles. And in 1989, a navigating device equipped with a small computer and
sensors was planned. It took images and then translated them into a series of audio
cues to inform the user which routes are blocked by obstacles. And after late nineties,
wearable obstacle detection system was introduced, which was quite heavy to wear
and handle.
SUMMARY:

Existing systems which provides guidance to blind like Guide Cane, Smart vision
use ultrasonic sensors or
laser sensors to detect obstacles in front of the blind by transmitting the wave and
reception of reflected
waves. It produces either an audio or vibration in response to detected obstacles to warn
blind.
Systems like Sound View use single camera or stereo video cameras mounted on a
wearable device to
capture images. These captured images are resized, processed further and converted to
speech, audio, musical
sounds or vibrations. In such systems, the frequency of warning sound signal is correlated
with the orientation of
pixels. Some systems like UltraCane help blind people by collecting information through
sensors and then
transmitting recommendations through vibration or sound message to the user.
The above solutions have disadvantages for instance, they can’t detect obstructions that
are hidden but very
dangerous for the blind such as downward stairs, holes etc.
 CHAPTER 3

PROPOSED SYSTEM
4.1 PROPOSED SMART BLIND STICK FOR
BLIND

3.1.1INTRODUCTION

The suggested system consists of components like Arduino, ultrasonic sensor,

buzzers, for the detection of obstacles and there is
need of few components like red coloured LED, switches,
jumper wire, 3.3 volt battery, with which user identifies an object. A stick is needed in
which the model can be fixed and operated.

CIRCUIT DIAGRAM
 3.2 FLOWCHART OF THE DESIGNED SYSTEM

COMPONENTS

• ARDUINO UNO
• ULTRASONIC SENSOR
• BUZZER
• LED
• JUMPER WIRES
• BATTERY
 COMPONENTS DESCRIPTION:

• ARDUINO UNO

The Arduino Micro is a microcontroller board based on the

ATmega32u4, developed in conjunction with Adafruit. It has 20 digital input/output
pins (of which 7 can be used as PWM outputs and 12 as analog inputs), a 16 MHz
crystal oscillator, a micro USB connection, an ICSP header, and a reset button. It
contains everything needed to support the microcontroller; simply connect it to a
computer with a micro USB cable to get started

• ULTRASONIC SENSOR

An ultrasonic sensor is an instrument that measures the distance to an

object using ultrasonic sound waves. It uses a transducer to send and receive ultrasonic
pulses that relay back information about an object’s proximity.
In the proposed system we use a pair of ultrasonic sensor. An upper one at a height of
about 90 cm to detect upper obstacles and another sensor at a height of about 30 cm to
detect obstacles below knee level. Each ultrasonic sensor detects the obstacles in a
range of about 200 - 400 cm. The distance of the obstacle is determined based on the
delay between the emission of sound and the arrival of an echo. The distance of the
obstacle can be measured as,
Distance = (time*speed of sound in air)/2
Where, time is the time duration for which the ultrasonic waves have travelled and
Speed of sound in air is 340m/s. We divide the product of time and speed by 2 because
the time is the total time it took to reach the obstacle and return.

• BUZZER

These devices
will be used to give
the signals to the
impaired person. The
buzzer will give
alarm sound when the object in nearer. The flexible ferromagnetic disk is attracted to
the coil when the magnetic field is activated, then returns to rest when the magnetic
field is off. By oscillating the signal through the coil, the buzzer produces a fluctuating
magnetic field, which vibrates the disk. This movement makes the buzzer sound.

• LED

It is a p-n junction diode, which

emits light when activated. When a suitable voltage is applied to the leads, electrons are
able to recombine with electron holes within the device, releasing energy in the form of
photons. This effect is called electroluminescence, and the colour of the light is
determined by the energy band gap of the semiconductor.

• JUMPER WIRES

 Jumper wire is an electric wire that connects remote electric circuits

used for printed circuit boards. By attaching a jumper wire on the circuit, it can be
short-circuited and short-cut (jump) to the electric circuit.

• BATTERY

In this proposed system battery is used for the power supply. The
complete board is powered by a 9V battery which is regulated to +5V. The output of the
board is given by the Buzzer which is connected.

3.5 CODE IMPLEMENTATION

3.6 SUMMARY
 The smart walking stick, constructed with at most accuracy, will help
the blind people to move from one place to another without others help. This could also be
considered a crude way of giving the blind a sense of vision. This stick reduces the
dependency of visually impaired people on other family members, friends and guide dogs
while walking around. The proposed combination of various working units makes a real-
time system that monitors position of the user and provides dual feedback making
navigation more safe and secure. The smart stick detects objects or obstacles in front of
users and feeds warning back, in the form of voice messages rather than vibration. Also
the incorporation of automatic room equipment switching in the stick will be useful while
they are indoor. The advantage of the system lies in the fact that it can prove to be a low
cost solution to millions of blind person worldwide
3.5 HARDWARE SYSTEM
 5. RESULT AND DISCUSSION

5.1 INTRODUCTION

Smart Blind Stick is a device designed to help guide the visually

impaired by detecting objects and portray the information to them in the form of
speech. This reduces the human effort and gives better understanding of the
surrounding. Furthermore it also provides an opportunity for visually impaired
people to move from one place to another without being assisted by others. The
device can also be used in old age homes where old age people have difficulty in
their day to day activities due to decreased vision. With this paper, the aim to aid
people in need to “see” the surroundings. Since the field of artificial intelligence is
doing great progress now and features like object detection is getting easier and
computationally feasible, these features are implemented in the paper. The paper
focuses on object detection and classification on pictures which are captured by
the device mounted on a stick whose information can then be relayed to the user
in means of sound or speech
 6. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORKS

It should be noted at this stage that this work has been

thoroughly carried out in order to design and implement an articulate walking bolt for
the blind. The Smart Stick acts as a versatile interface for easy and comfortable internal
and external mobility for visually impaired people in the next phase of more supportive
apps. It's safe and affordable. This results in effective obstacle detection within three
meters of the user's direction. It offers low cost, reliable, lightweight, low power
and efficient navigation with fast, quick response times. The computer is
hardwired, but light weight, with sensors and other features. Wireless
connectivity between components of the device will enhance the additional features of
this instrument and increase the range of ultrasound sensors and incorporate
technologies to measure the intensity of obstacles approaching. With this approach, our
targets in all of the developing countries were particularly addressed towards visually
impaired and blind people. In this analysis the machine built can only sense obstacles
and humidity. No holes can be identified with this device or with the form of barrier.
Thus, ultrasonic sensor systems, arduino Uno and other tools can be designed for an
approach to warn users about the direction of movement by using audio commands.
For easy use and flexibility, a vibrator can also be attached. Further
enhancements to boost system performance will be made in future. These include: an
international system for locating the individual via the GPS and GSM systems in order
to reach the parent or caregiver venue. It should be flexible and wide range
of handling.
REFERENCE

Nowak, Michal, et al. "Characteristics of refractive errors in a population of adults in

the central region of
Poland." International journal of environmental research and public health 15.1 (2018):
90.
[2] G. Gayathri, M. Vishnupriya, R. Nandhini and M. Banupriya “Smart Walking
Stick for Visually imparied’
Impaired.”International Journal of Engineering