IRJET- Smart Guiding System for Blind: Obstacle Detection and Real-time Assistance via GPS

International Research Journal of Engineering and Technology (IRJET) e-ISSN: 2395-0056
Volume: 05 Issue: 03 | Mar-2018 www.irjet.net p-ISSN: 2395-0072
© 2018, IRJET | Impact Factor value: 6.171 | ISO 9001:2008 Certified Journal | Page 500
Smart Guiding System for Blind: Obstacle Detection and Real-time
Assistance via GPS
1Abhishek Gupta, 2Abhishek Yadav, 3Bhaskar Sharma, 4Amrit Pal
1,2,3,4 Student, Dept. of EC, IMS Engineering College, Ghaziabad, UP, India
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Abstract- This paper conveys a theoretical model to
facilitate blind people with an aid. The primary motive is to
equip blind people with necessary aid for an effective means
of mobility. Through this system a sense of artificial vision
can be provided which can aid in providing solution to
visual impairment. Various sensors such as water sensor,
smoke sensor and ultrasonic sensor together form the basis
of this system.
Key Words: - Vision, Smoke Sensor, Water Sensor,
Ultrasonic sensor.
1. INTRODUCTION
The most important part of human physiology is vision. It
is because the information human beings get from the
nearby surroundings is through vision. The statistics by
various health organizations estimate that most of the
people in world are with visual impairment, 39 billion of
which are blind. There are many with low vision. The
traditional and oldest mobility aids for persons with visual
problems are the walking cane. Guide dogs are also used
but they are not trustworthy. The most important
drawbacks of these aids are necessary skills and training
period, range of motion and small information that they
convey. There have been a invention of lot of Electronic
Travel Aids and they have been implemented to help the
blind navigate independently and safely. Many high-level
technological solutions have been introduced recently to
help blind persons navigate independently. GPS is the
system that is used to identify the current location of a
person. While such systems are suitable for navigation in
outdoor as they require the need for line of sight access to
satellite but they also require additional components to
improve on the resolution and proximity detection to
prevent collision of the blind persons with other objects
and protect them from danger. However in comparison to
other technologies, many blind guidance systems use
ultrasound because of it is not prone to the environmental
noise.
The major reason why ultrasonic is popular is that this
technology is relatively less expensive, and also
ultrasound emitters and detectors are light enough to be
used without the need for complex circuitry. Apart from
the old navigation aids, a blind aid system can add a new
dimension of Real-space assistance and vision along with
dedicated obstacle detection circuitry. Thus a system
which can facilitate aid to the blind is the need of the hour.
2. SYSTEM DESIGN
The design consists of two units:
● The GPS Unit.
● The Obstacle Detection Unit.
The block diagram below depicts the proposed design of
an embedded smart guiding system. The system elements
consist of various subsystems. The sensor based circuitry
consists of sensors such as smoke sensor, water sensor,
ultrasonic sensors, and GSM module. Vibratory circuitry
consists of an array of vibrators with logic designed to
obtain different vibratory patterns. The proposed system
can be designed to take form of a detachable and portable
device, which can be unconditionally mounted on a simple
shoe, belt or blind guiding system. This requires a clear
vision of the desired system goals. Various system
parameters are thus needed to be evaluated based on the
design to be practically implementable.
Fig-1: Block Diagram

Fig-2: Ultrasonic Sensor
3. THE GPS UNIT
This system is comprises of GSM Module. The Micro
controller is the heart of the device. It gathers the data of
the current location which it is presented from the GPS
system. It can make use of the data stored and can send
location in form of latitude and longitude to the user. By
this it can trace out the distance from the destination .The
Arduino UNO microcontroller can be readily used with
GSM Module. The cost efficacy of the GSM module makes it
a perfect companion of the navigation system. The Global
Positioning System (GPS) was an important invention in
the United States of America that gives best positioning,
navigation, and timing services to users on a complete
worldwide basis which is available to all free of cost. For
anyone with a GPS receiver, the system will provide
location with time. GPS gives unambiguous location and
time data for an unlimited number of people in all
climates, day and night, anywhere in the world. The
accurate timing provided by GPS facilitates everyday
activities such as banking, mobile phone operations, and
even the control of power grids. Surveyors, farmers,
geologists and more others perform their work a little
more precisely, economically, safely, and accurately using
the free and abundant GPS signals. SIM808 module is a
four Band GSM or GPRS module which is a combination of
GPS technology for satellite navigation. SIM 808 is of
utmost importance in this unit. It is acting like a GPS in this
system.
Fig-3: GSM Module
4. MICROCONTROLLER
In this system we have used Arduino UNO. The reason for
using it is that it is economic and uncomplicated to use.
The support provided by Arduino is also excellent.
Atmega 328 is the foundation of Arduino UNO board. It is
manufactured by Arduino. It is composed of twenty digital
input or output pins. Six pins may be used for Pulse Width
Modulation outputs and another six may be used as analog
inputs. A power jack is provide along with a sixteen MHz
resonator, in-circuit system programming (ICSP) header, a
USB connection and a reset button for resetting operation.
It has all devices which are needed to support the
microcontroller. To get the microcontroller initiated, a
USB cable is essential. The difference of Arduino UNO from
all other boards it that others do not utilize the FTDI USB-
to-serial driver chip.
Fig-4: Arduino UNO
5. OBSTACLE DETECTION UNIT
The proposed system uses a combination of ultrasonic
sensors which basically works on the principle of the
ultrasonic sound generation and alert mechanism. The
system is however having a dual feedback mechanism that
is it has an additional vibratory feedback mechanism. This
enhances the overall feedback received by the blind user
who receives the outputs generated in different formats of
vibration that is high, low, medium and strong vibrations.
This Unit provides the overall edge to the proposed work
so far. With the variety of obstacle detection devices
available and GPS emerging as a commonly preferred
technology in blind navigation kit, there is a need for
providing overall assistance to the blind about the
environmental information to make navigation more safe
and secure. This unit comprises of getting the data from
the environment, assembling the information and
extracting the required information required by the blind
user. The user gets alert from the vibrations from the unit
on obstacle detection. The user then interprets these
vibrations based on their location to know the location of
obstacle.

6. CONCLUSION
The paper proposed the design and architecture of a new
concept of Smart Electronic Travel Guiding system for
blind people. The benefit of the system is the fact that it
can prove to be very cheap cost solution to billions of blind
person worldwide. The presented interaction of various
working units results in a real-time system that examines
position of the user and provides dual feedback making
navigation more secure and safe.
7. FUTURE SCOPE
Rather than using GPS via a GSM module, GPS using IOT
(Internet of Things) can be implemented. This can help in
real time tracking using an android application. It can also
help in guiding the blind person by giving him voice based
instructions for following directions. The system can also
make use of stereo camera and processing unit, to process
the data.
8. REFERENCES
[1] S. Ceranka, and M. Niedzwiecki, "Application of
particle filtering in navigation system for blind," in Proc.
ISSPA, 1-4 July2003, vol.2, pp. 495- 498
[2] S. Shoval, I. Ulrich, and J. Bornstein, "NavBelt and
guideCane," IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine, vol.
10, no 1, pp. 9-20, 2003.
[3] T. I fukube, T. Sasaki, and C. Peng, "A blind mobility aid
modeled after echolocation of bats," IEEE Transactions on
Biomedical Engineering, vol. 38, no. 5, pp. 461-465, 1991.
[4] I. Ulrich, and J. Bornstein, "The guide cane Applying
mobile robot technologies to assist visually impaired,"
IEEE Transaction on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics-
PartA. Systems and Humans, vol. 31, no. 2, pp. 131-136,
2001.
[5] A. Heyse, "A polaroid ultrasonic travel aid for the blind,
"Journal of Visual Impairment and Blindness, vol. 76, pp.
199-201, 1982

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IRJET- Smart Guiding System for Blind: Obstacle Detection and Real-time Assistance via GPS