Smart Electronic Cane for the Assistance of Visually Impaired People

Vision loss affects the independence, mobility and overall quality of life. Although, a variety of assistive tools are available to improve the mobility of the visually impaired people, there is still much scope for improvement. This paper presents a smart electronic cane for way-guiding the low vision or blind people. The proposed system detects various obstacles and danger-signs automatically and gives corresponding audio feedback to its user. Three ultrasonic sensors were used for detecting front, right and left obstacles. Danger sign detection is a novel feature of the proposed system and it was done through a camera and template matching technique. It gives audio feedback to its users through a buzzer and a headphone. The ability of the system to assist its users was evaluated with five blindfolded healthy subjects and in a controlled test environment. It successfully assisted for 90.93% cases. Such automated smart cane can improve the mobility of the visually impaired people.