Students of Madanapalle Institute of Technology and Science (MITS), Madanapalle, have designed a system called ‘Blind Vision’ that helps the visually-challenged to tread easily even in crowded spaces.
M. Guru Prasad, P. Asha, S. Bhavya, M. Gunasekhar, Reddy Prasad and Samarasimha Reddy, final year ECE students, have replaced the canes that guide the visually challenged in detection and avoidance of obstacles. Unlike the scores of similar guiding systems developed at exorbitant costs for people with vision impairment, this seemingly simple, portable and cost-effective alternative navigation system focuses on two things, viz., sensing the immediate environment for them to travel and navigating to destinations beyond the immediate perceptible environment, by making use of GPS, voice, Bluetooth and ultrasonic sensor for obstacle detection.
The system has a visional system fixed to the pair of shoes that takes care of the obstacle detection, while the android application named ‘Blind Vision’ receives the signal. Once the application is activated, it automatically opens the Google Maps, traces the present location of the user and seeks his destination. When the user feeds the information, it tries to find the path to reach the destination and gives directions in the form of voice. The app will interface the maps and the obstacle information signals. The Google Maps will then guide the person through voice.
The device has also been selected for the ‘Motorola Scholar Award’ for final presentation. Principal C. Yuvaraj, ECE head A.R. Reddy and guide R. Velmani congratulated the students on their accomplishment.
