AUTONOMOUS ELECTRONIC GUIDING STICK USING IOT FOR THE BLIND

Electronics and Instrumentation Engineering

Visually challenged people have the inability of visual perception due to various genetic, biological and neurological factors. Navigating from one place to other is one of the fundamental actions performed in man’s life. Visually challenged people face so many problems in navigation and they are often dependent on traditional walking sticks, guide dogs or guides. It is a challenge for these people to independently navigate on a daily basis. Situations are even worse in unfamiliar environments. Blind people do not know the surrounding information data regarding obstacles, potholes or other dangers and have very little knowledge regarding landmarks in a particular region. With increasing human machine interaction, there are lots of devices which help in navigation of the visually challenged in indoor and outdoor environments. The most preferred guiding solution by the blind is the walking cane. Guides and guide dogs can turn out to be an expensive option. Therefore, we aim to design and implement a low cost, real time navigation system which is the guiding electronic stick that assists these visually challenged people in their navigation by audio instructions and can autonomously move which resembles the traditional walking cane.

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