Design and development of a prototype rehabilitative shoes and spectacles for the blind

Assistive technology has not yet reached an acceptable level of success in addressing the needs of blind individuals to navigate safely, comfortably, gracefully, and independently. Accordingly, this paper addresses a prototype, smart rehabilitative shoes and spectacles, designed and developed to facilitate safe navigation and mobility of blind individuals. Each shoe is mounted with three pairs of ultrasonic transducers placed on the medial, central, and lateral aspects of the toe cap so as to detect ground-level obstacles of different heights as well as ground pits and holes. The corresponding tactile outputs are provided by three miniature-sized vibrating motors embedded within the collar of the shoe. The spectacles are instrumented with a pair of ultrasonic transducers mounted centrally above the bridge, and with a buzzer at one of the temples. They are used to detect obstacles at head level. The developed shoes and spectacles are controlled via a battery-operated, microcontroller-based belt pack unit. The developed system has been subjected to several validation tests. A sighted young adult male subject, instrumented with the developed system, underwent an extensive training session, during which he had the chance to get familiarized with the sensory-substitution process that the device offers. Results obtained from the validation tests are to allow final fine-tuning of the system before putting it into real-world rehabilitative application. The developed system is regarded as a step-forward towards the advancements in Electronic Travel Aids, and should contribute to the betterment of the life of individuals with vision loss.