Smart Blind Stick

Visual impairment often becomes noticeable to others through the visibility of a white cane. This public sign of blindness is an imperative signal that people understand, interpret and act in accordance with; however, the white cane is more than an external iconic aid. This study describes, explains and reflects on movement, assemblages, relationality, companionship, interconnectedness and learning opportunities that resonated across multiple white cane users’ experiences. Biographical pieces of two visually impaired people and their close networks, literature based on authors’ lived experiences and testimonies of the first author who is also visually impaired are brought together into a coherent narrative, where the white cane is the protagonist. This narrative deconstructs the omnipresent metanarrative ‘all blind people always use a white cane’ into a complete evocation that acknowledges the complexity of daily living that materiality and blindness entail. We use the white cane to rethink blindness and open a multisensory and multidimensional understanding.

For a long time, visually impaired person uses a white cane to guide their way when travel outside. The white cane has been useful for the blinds in improving their mobility but unfortunately the white cane has its limitation. One of the shortcomings of the white cane is that, it could only detect the obstacles that are within the contact ranges of the white cane. This problem sometimes could cause the blind person to be in trouble because of insufficient time to detect and warn new obstacles in front of the blind person. This research proposes a walking stick system that has two functions; to classify an obstacles height whether it is low or high and to detect a front hole. The ability to detect the height of an obstacle will help the visually impaired to either step over or avoid the obstacle. The ability to detect a hole should help the visually impaired to avoid it in time. The walking stick will use two ultrasonic sensors for the detection of obstacle height, and a laser sensor for the detection of hole. A controller will be used to monitor and analyze the data from the sensors and feedback to the user through a vibration sensor and buzzer. The algorithm to differentiate the height of obstacles is working well and it is able to differentiate high or low obstacles. The laser ranging sensor has successfully been tested for hole detection. Therefore, the walking stick with ultrasonic and laser sensors will help more visually impaired to move around much faster and feeling more safer due to improved warning system for their movement.

Obstacle avoidance is a major challenge during independent mobility for blind or visually impaired (BVI) people. Typically, BVI people can only perceive obstacles at a short distance (about 1 m, in case they are using the white cane), and some obstacles are hard to detect (e.g . , those elevated from the ground), or should not be hit by the white cane (e.g . , a standing person). A solution to these problems can be found in recent computer-vision techniques that can run on mobile and wearable devices to detect obstacles at a distance. However, in addition to detecting obstacles, it is also necessary to convey information about them in real time. This contribution presents WatchOut , a sonification technique for conveying real-time information about the main properties of an obstacle to a BVI person, who can then use this additional feedback to safely navigate in the environment. WatchOut was designed with a user-centered approach, involving four iterations of online listening tests with BVI participants in order to define, improve and evaluate the sonification technique, eventually obtaining an almost perfect recognition accuracy. WatchOut was also implemented and tested as a module of a mobile app that detects obstacles using state-of-the-art computer vision technology. Results show that the system is considered usable and can guide the users to avoid more than 85% of the obstacles.

The visually-impaired people have the difficulty on perceive the largeness of a space and objects existed in a space by means of visual information. Particularly auditory-trained visually-impaired people can recognize 3-D spatial information with environmental sounds. However, systematic learning method of auditory training for acquired visually-impaired is not established sufficiently because the self-experience of the visually-impaired people is the main reason of ability acquisition in the actual environment because they do not have enough information about moving in the real environment. In this paper, the authors aim at demonstrating moving situations and moving needs of the visually-impaired, for example, which acoustical factors can be used in some living situation, what kind of environmental situation they think it difficult to perceive silent objects and what kind of aid they need. Results indicated following facts: Totally visually-impaired people tend to get more spatial information from auditory than not-totally visually-impaired people. Regarding available auditory cues, items of rotating head in order to listen carefully to environmental sound, and hitting floors stronger by a white cane or foot for voluming up reflected or reverberated sounds were much selected by the totally visually-impaired participants who can perceive obstacles with auditory information. Result of question about conventional devices indicated that most totally visually-impaired participants selected electrical sounding device informing obstacle distance, while most not-totally visually-impaired participants selected vibrating device informing the distance of walls or doors and tactually-stimulated device informing obstacle distance.

There are plenty of objects that are conspicuous in the way they signal to the surroundings that the user has some kind of physical impairment. Most obvious are perhaps wheelchairs, motorized wheelchairs, hearing aids and crutches. These objects can be described as aids in the sense that the purpose is either to mitigate the effects of reduced physical abilities or to compensate for the loss of a sensory faculty. The focus of this article concerns an object that both increases mobility and replaces such a faltering capacity. It might even be the most iconic of all aids: the mobility cane, also known as the white cane, long cane or white stick. Based on the work at a Swedish Low Vision and Resource Centre, this article discusses the use of the white cane among people with severe and progressive visual impairment. The fact is that this aid, which for an outsider would easily seem to be a rather natural choice, can arouse completely different feelings in somebody who has a severe visual impairment. It is a well-known circumstance amongst low visions teachers and therapists that persons with acquired or progressive sight impairment are often not quite happy about using the aid. Therefore, the aim of the article is to utilize notions of everyday experiences to gain further insights into why the white cane for many of its potential users are associated with strong feelings of both personal ambiguity and social stress. In order to highlight these emotional, and still cultural and political, tensions, the discussion is grounded in critical disability studies and informed by ableism, stigma, and passing as theoretical concepts.

People using white canes for navigation find it challenging to concurrently access devices such as smartphones. Building on prior research on abandonment of specialized devices, we explore a new touch free mode of interaction wherein a person with visual impairment can perform gestures on their existing white cane to trigger tasks on their smartphone. We present GesturePod, an easy-to-integrate device that clips on to any white cane, and detects gestures performed with the cane. With GesturePod, a user can perform common tasks on their smartphone without touch or even removing the phone from their pocket or bag. We discuss the challenges in building the device and our design choices. We propose a novel, efficient machine learning pipeline to train and deploy the gesture recognition model. Our in-lab study shows that GesturePod achieves 92% gesture recognition accuracy and can help perform common smartphone tasks faster. Our in-wild study suggests that GesturePod is a promising tool to improve smartphone access for people with VI, especially in constrained outdoor scenarios.

The present research offers an innovative approach to enhance the safety and mobility of people with visual impairments by using a smart white cane sensor. Herein, an aluminum electrode, Kapton film, and an inexpensive PET substrate are employed to develop an origami‐shaped multilayered triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) device. The multilayered integration of three‐unit TENGs produces output with a high power of 51 μW at 50 MΩ, along with 155 V and 4.5 μA. Capacitor charging, low‐power electronics powering, and the integration of mechanoluminescent materials are demonstrated. The integration of mechanoluminescent materials enables efficient identification of visually impaired people in regions with poor lighting. A single‐electrode TENG is also implemented for successful surface material detection. To further enhance the sensor's capabilities, digital signal processing techniques are employed for obstacle recognition on their route. The intelligent white cane sensor effectively detects obstructions, offering the user instantaneous feedback and enabling more secure navigation in sophisticated environments. This study highlights the possibility of integrating TENG technologies to provide a complete solution for people with visual impairments. The smart white cane sensor has the potential to greatly increase the safety and independence of visually impaired people in a variety of outdoor and public spaces.

Mobility and navigation remain major challenges for individuals with visual impairments, particularly in complex and dynamic outdoor environments. Existing assistive tools such as white canes and guide dogs provide basic support but are often limited in range, adaptability, and situational awareness. This study proposes a sensor-integrated smart shoe system designed to enhance safe mobility for visually impaired users by enabling real-time obstacle detection and feedback. The system incorporates ultrasonic sensors, pressure sensors, vibration motors, and a microcontroller to detect obstacles at various distances and provide intuitive haptic alerts. An energy-efficient design and compact integration ensure user comfort and long-term usability. Experimental evaluations demonstrate high obstacle-detection accuracy, minimal response latency, and effective user feedback, enabling improved navigation confidence. The findings highlight the potential of wearable sensor-based solutions to significantly enhance independent mobility and contribute to next-generation assistive technologies for visually impaired individuals.

The project describes ultrasonic blind walking stick with the use of Arduino. According to World Health Organisation, 30 million peoples are permanently blind and 285 billion peoples with vision impairment. If u 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 by vibrating. So, the person can walk without any fear. This device will be best solution to overcome their difficulties. Generally, blind people use a traditional cane (known as white cane) for moving from one place to another. Activities like walking down the road, knowing and recognizing the presence of an obstacle in front of them, reading road signs etc. We represent a model of walking stick for blind people. This consists of GPS module, GPS Antenna, Arduino, ultrasonic sensor and buzzer. This stick can detect place and obstacles. The system employs a point-by-point approach to analyze the surrounding environment, providing real-time feedback to the user. Blind people consists of a large group of people in our society. Losing their eyesight has caused them inconvenience in performing daily tasks. Hence, smart cane had been developed in order to increase the life quality of a blind person. The purpose of this project is to design a smart cane with ultrasonic sensor and global system for mobile (GSM) for the blind. This embedded system mainly has mobility. For mobility system, it is equipped with ultrasonic sensor, HCSR04 and vibrating motor. Ultrasonic sensor will send the trigger pulse to detect obstacles. When an obstacle is detected, signals will be sent to vibrating motor and activate it. The vibrating motor will vibrate with different strengths according to the distance of the obstacle. The microcontroller used in this embedded system is Arduino UNO. The prototype of smart cane was built to increase the mobility of the blind people. Keywords— Signal processing, Internet of things, Ultrasonic sensor, visual impaired people

In 2010, the World Health Organization estimates that there were about 285 million people in the world with disabling eyesight loss (246 millions are visually impaired (VI) and 39 millions are totally blind). For such users, hits during mobility tasks are the reason of major concerns and can reduce the quality of their life. The white cane is the primary device used by the majority of blind or VI users to explore and possibly avoid obstacles; it can monitor only the ground (< 1m) and it does not provide protection for the legs, the trunk and the head. In this paper, authors propose a novel stand-alone Electronic Travel Aid (ETA) device for obstacle detection based on multi- sensing (by 4 ultrasonic transducers) and a microcontroller. Portability, simplicity, reduced dimensions and cost are among the major pros of the reported system, which can detect and localize (angular position and distance from the user) obstacles eventually present in the volume in front of him and on the ground in front of him.

In recent years, the number of visually impaired people in Japan has exceeded 300,000 including those with low vision, and accidental falls on the station platform involving them have not been eliminated. Persons having acquired visual impairment make up one third of all cases of blindness in Japan. It is known that they often cannot walk alone with only a white cane or guide dog. The main cause of platform accidents was misidentification of braille blocks. Therefore, it was necessary to develop an auxiliary device for accurately identifying braille blocks that the acquired visually impaired could also use easily. In this research, we developed an automatic identification system for braille blocks using foot pressure data acquired by a multi-channel pressure sensor array. First, we devised a new foot pressure data acquisition device using a multi-channel pressure sensor array. Our proposed device had excellent features such as being light weight, low cost, and easy to extend to multi-channel. Second, in order to accurately identify the braille blocks, the foot pressure data acquired under various conditions was learned by neural network, and identification performance evaluated. As a result of the experiment, the braille blocks could be identified with a high rate of at least 98% accuracy by neural network, with a very simple structure of an input layer (16 neurons), a hidden layer (5 neurons), and an output layer (4 neurons).

In this paper, we propose an outdoor navigation system, intended for people with visual impairments. Our system makes use of a Microsoft Kinect which is reconfigured for mobile use with a portable power supply. An object detection model was trained to detect commonly found obstacles on roads, namely cars, pedestrians, bicycles and motorcycles, based on the inputs from the Kinect. In the process, we select an optimal object detection model for an embedded environment by carrying out extensive training, benchmarking and experimentation on three single shot detection models (SSD) with different feature extractors and a RetinaNet model, while also applying quantization techniques to obtain real-time performance with relatively minor losses in performance. The detections from the network are leveraged to calculate the distance between the person and the object detected, using the depth map from the Kinect, and the information is relayed to the user using a text-to-speech system, through Bluetooth earphones paired to the system. The entire setup is constructed on a white cane, where a Raspberry Pi 3B is connected to the Kinect for reading the input frames and performing onboard processing. The results of testing the model in outdoor footage indicate its viability as a tool for outdoor navigation.KeywordsKinectObject detectionDeep learningSSDSmart cane

PSS14 Qualitative Exploration of Patient Experiences of Visual Function Impairments and Health-Related Quality of Life Impacts Associated with RLBP1 Retinitis Pigmentosa in a Sample of Canadian Patients

Visual impairment significantly hinders daily activities, necessitating innovative solutions. This study develops and tests a smart walking stick using NodeMCU ESP-8266, HCSR-04 ultrasonic sensor, DFPlayer, and GPS, monitored via the Blynk app. Employing a research and development approach, the device demonstrated 100% accuracy in obstacle detection and location tracking, providing real-time feedback through audio notifications and smartphone monitoring. This smart walking stick enhances mobility and safety for visually impaired users, representing a significant advancement in assistive technology. Highlights: Accurate Obstacle Detection: 100% accuracy with HCSR-04 ultrasonic sensor. Real-time Monitoring: GPS tracking via Blynk app. Enhanced Mobility: Increases safety and independence for visually impaired users. Keywords: Visual impairment, Smart walking stick, Ultrasonic sensor, GPS tracking, IoT

The SmartVision prototype is a small, cheap and easily wearable navigation aid for blind and visually impaired persons. Its functionality addresses global navigation for guiding the user to some destiny, and local navigation for negotiating paths, sidewalks and corridors, with avoidance of static as well as moving obstacles. Local navigation applies to both in- and outdoor situations. In this article we focus on local navigation: the detection of path borders and obstacles in front of the user and just beyond the reach of the white cane, such that the user can be assisted in centering on the path and alerted to looming hazards. Using a stereo camera worn at chest height, a portable computer in a shoulder-strapped pouch or pocket and only one earphone or small speaker, the system is inconspicuous, it is no hindrence while walking with the cane, and it does not block normal surround sounds. The vision algorithms are optimised such that the system can work at a few frames per second.