An Ultrasonic Navigation System for Blind People

Author

Bousbia-salah, Mounir ; Redjati, Abdelghani ; Fezari, Mohamed ; Bettayeb, Maamar

Author_Institution

Dept of Electron., Univ. of Annaba, Annaba, Algeria

fYear

2007

fDate

24-27 Nov. 2007

Firstpage

1003

Lastpage

1006

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to investigate the development of a navigation aid for blind and visually impaired people. It is based on a microcontroller with synthetic speech output. This aid is portable and gives information to the user about urban walking routes to point out what decisions to make. On the other hand, and in order to reduce navigation difficulties of the blind, an obstacle detection system using ultrasounds and vibrators is added to this device. The proposed system detects the nearest obstacle via stereoscopic sonar system and sends back vibro-tactile feedback to inform the blind about its localization.

Keywords

handicapped aids; microcontrollers; navigation; object detection; sonar detection; ultrasonic applications; vision defects; blind people; microcontroller; obstacle detection system; speech synthesis; stereoscopic sonar system; ultrasonic navigation system; urban walking routes; vibrators; vibro-tactile feedback; visually impaired people; Acceleration; Accelerometers; Feedback; Legged locomotion; Microcontrollers; Signal processing; Sonar detection; Sonar navigation; Speech; Ultrasonic imaging; Handicapped aids; Navigation; Sonar;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Signal Processing and Communications, 2007. ICSPC 2007. IEEE International Conference on

Conference_Location

Dubai

Print_ISBN

978-1-4244-1235-8

Electronic_ISBN

978-1-4244-1236-5

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ICSPC.2007.4728491

Filename

4728491