IRJET- Virtual Eye for the Visually Challenged

International Research Journal of Engineering and Technology (IRJET) e-ISSN: 2395-0056
Volume: 06 Issue: 03 | Mar 2019 www.irjet.net p-ISSN: 2395-0072
© 2019, IRJET | Impact Factor value: 7.211 | ISO 9001:2008 Certified Journal | Page 7543
VIRTUAL EYE FOR THE VISUALLY CHALLENGED
Deeparani M1, Gayathri S R2, Ishwarya P3, Pranav J P4
1Assistant Professor, Department of Electronics and Instrumentation Engineering, Dr. Mahalingam College of
Engineering and Technology, Tamilnadu, India
2,3,4Student, Department of Electronics and Instrumentation Engineering, Dr. Mahalingam College of Engineering
and Technology, Tamilnadu, India
---------------------------------------------------------------------***----------------------------------------------------------------------
Abstract - The advancement was incorporated with the
help of Node MCU (microcontroller) in the walking stick that
allows visually challenged people to navigate with no one’s
help using the voice commands from the mobile application.
The output will be sent from the voice module via Bluetooth
module to the paired device i.e. mobile phone. It is intended in
a way that it provides overall mission over artificial
intelligence and object detection. Thus the proposed method
has successfully proved to be more efficient in providing
accurate output as commands and being more user-friendly.
Key Words: sensors, commands, output, stick,
bluetooth
1. INTRODUCTION
Vision plays a vital role in every one’s life from feeling the
real world to making the own necessities made possible. It
can either achieved by natural vision or by replacement to
the human eye. The stick is incorporated with Ultrasonic
sensor, Rain sensor, LDR whose outputs are dumped into
Node MCU(microcontroller) in the form of analog outputs
which are parameterized into voice commands using voice
module with necessary program and finally to a paired
mobile application. Ultrasonic sensor detects the obstacle;
Rain sensor senses the region ahead of the person; LDR
output is an analog value where the output voice commands
pursues the parameterized value for the output command.
This system replaces the hustle in making the idea into
system, removing the hurdles of the idea into practical
system. This is a model that has itself with many of the
separately considered parameters in a single stick.
2. EXISTING SYSTEM
Several proposals are available for the smart stick models.
Most of these proposals are ideas that may or may not be
made into the working model.
2.1 BLIND STICK NAVIGATOR TOOL
This is a prototype model which is designed using five
different sensors with microcontroller interface are used
which are connected to a buzzer and vibrator. ATMEGA 16 is
the main controller used here. The sensors used here are fire
sensor, ultrasonic sensor, IR, LDR, water sensor which are
used as input source and the output will be in the form of
buzzer and vibrator. This blind assist tool that provide
obstacles notification and GPS location to the guardian or
authority via SMS. The major drawback of this prototype is
the buzzer sound which will create nuisance to the people
around the visually challenged people who uses this device.
2.2SMART BLIND STICK
Arduino Nano is used to control all the sensors in this
model. The completeboard ispowered bya9Vbatterywhich
is regulated to +5V using a 7805 Voltage regulator. The
Ultrasonic sensor is powered by 5V and the trigger and Echo
pin is connected to Arduino nano pin 3 and 2. The LDR is
connected with a resistor of value 10K to form a Potential
divider and the difference in voltage is read by Arduino ADC
pin A1. The ADC pin A0 is used to read the signal from RF
receiver. The output of the board is given by the Buzzer
which is connected to pin 12.have used a small hack to make
this RF remote control circuit to work. Normally while using
this 433 MHz module requires an Encoder and Decoder or
two MCU to work. But, in our application we just need the
receiver to detect if the transmitter is sending some signals.
So the Data pin of the transmitter is connected to Ground or
Vcc of the supply. The data pin of the receiver is passed
through an RC filter and then given to the Arduino. The
distance is measured from any obstacle. There will be no
alarm if the measured distance is more than 50cm. But, if it is
less than 50cm the alarm will start by beeping the buzzer. As
the object gets closer to the buzzer the beeping interval will
also decrease. The closer the object is the faster the buzzer
will beep. This can be done by creating a delay that is
proportional to the distance measured. Now, whenever the
button is pressed the Receiver output some constant ADC
value repeatedly. This repetition cannot be observed when
the button is not pressed. So Arduino program is written to
check for repeated values to detect if the button is pressed.
That is how a Blind person can track his stick. When the
button is pressed on the remote the buzzer will give a long
beep, the output is purely a buzzer sound, if the ultrasonic
sensor is closer to the object and the Buzzer keep on beeping
and this beeping frequency increases as the stick goes closer
to object. If the LDR is covered in dark or if there is too much
light the buzzer will beep. If everything is normal the buzzer
will not beep. If the buzzer is always beeping, it means the
alarm is being false triggered. Then the serial monitor must
be opened and checked.

3. PROPOSED SYSTEM
The proposal is developed using three sensors namely,
 ultrasonic sensor,
 rain sensor,
 LDR
which are programmed to work in Node MCU
microcontroller on Arduino IDE that is dumped into the
microcontroller and the outputwillbebasedonthetargetthe
stick encounters, while the necessaryvoicecommandtoalert
the user will under Bluetooth communication to the paired
android mobile.
Power Supply=> Sensors => Node MCU =>Bluetooth
module => Android application => Voice commands
The output is in the form of voice commands only from
the paired android mobile, that avoids disturbancetotheone
around the user. The commands can be modified by re-
programming.
Fig -1: Block diagram
3.1COMPONENTS
NodeMCU, is an open source IoT platformwhichincludes
firmware which runs on the ESP8266 Wifi SoC and from
Expressif systemsandthehardwarebasedonESP-12module
that supports Wifiandbluetooth.Ultrasonicsensorgenerates
high frequency sound waves and evaluate the echo which is
received back by the sensor, the time taken to transmit the
signal and to retrieve back bythesensorisusedincalculating
the distance between them. Rain sensor which is otherwisea
rain switch gets activated when rain drops fall on the surface
of the panel. LDR, otherwise called photo-resistor is a light
controlled variable resistor whose resistance decreaseswith
increasing incident light intensity. Bluetoothmoduleinother
words is acommunication bridgebetween voice moduleand
paired mobile. They are selected on the basis of lesser
distance coverage in order to minimize the ambiguity with
distance obstacles.
3.2COMMUNICATION
The output from the microcontroller is communicated to
the android mobile phone via Bluetooth communication.
3.3SOFTWARE
Software program is compiled in Arduino IDE which is a
user friendly programming environment.
Fig -2: Arduino IDE program compilation
4. HARDWARE DESCRIPTION
On the basis of range to be considered, the components were
selected and on the other hand to ignore ambiguity.
Fig 3-:Hardware prototype

4.1NODE MCU
It has 12 GPIO pins from which the three sensors namely
ultrasonic sensor, rain sensor and LDR utilize the inputsand
outputs based on the hardware connection that encounters
with the code. Firstly, the program to be performed by the
system has been dumped into it. Then, the inputs of the
sensors are soldered with connecting wires while necessary
power supply of 5v is given.
4.2. ULTRASONIC SENSOR
The ultrasonic sensor transmits sound waves and the
sound waves travel through the medium with specific
velocity at an angle of 35 degree. The sound waves from the
sensor once when hit the obstacle reaches back to the
receiving terminal. Based on their transmission and
receiving intervals, thedistanceiscalculated.Theshortburst
of ultrasonic sound reflects the sound back to the sensor,
then the command “obstacle detected” is delivered to the
user.
4.3. RAIN SENSOR
The rain sensor senses the water that completes the
circuits in the printed leads on its sensor boards’. Here, the
leads on the surface of the panel acts as a variable resistor
that varies from 100k ohms when wet to2Mohmswhen dry.
In short, the wetter the board the more current will be
conducted. Hence, the program is programmed in a way to
indicate wet condition, i.e the presence of water and its
output will be delivered as “water here” as output.
4.4.LDR
LDR or Light Dependent Resistor is made up of a high
resistance semiconductor. In the dark, it can have a
resistance as high as several mega-ohms, while in the light it
can have a resistance as low as few hundred ohms. The
incident light on the LDR when exceeding certain frequency,
the photons absorbed by the semiconductor gives bound
electrons enough energy to jump into the conduction band,
where the resulting free electrons and their hole partners
conduct electricity, lowers electricity. This is considered as
output of the LDR, which is fed as output to the Bluetooth
module.
4.5. BLUETOOTH MODULE
The Bluetooth moduleHC-05workswithserialdata.This
means that the microcontroller sends information and the
Bluetooth module receives it via serial and vice versa. By
default, the HC-05 module operates at a baud rate of 9600.
The module works on 5V supply and the signal pins operate
on 3.3V, hence a regulator is present in the module itself.
4.6 MOBILE APPLICATION
The Bluetooth module communicates with the paired
device andtherebyitprovidesthenecessaryvoicecommands
to the visually challenged. The command is provided both as
voice command and text so that it would be better for a
second party user who guides the user. The mobile app
designed especially for this is SMART MIRROR using JAVA
programming.
Fig -4:Smart mirror: Android application
5. WORKING
The ultrasonic sensor and the rain sensor requires5vsupply
from the power supply while LDR is activated from the
minimum supply from the microcontroller. Node MCU is
dumped with program to be processed using Arduino IDE
and checked for Bluetooth transmission. The hardware
connections are checked for any short circuits. If no error or
problem is found, the circuit is placed on the upper surface
of the walking stick with necessary insulations. Whenpower
supply is provided, the hardware circuit gets activated and
the program in the microcontroller is enabled. As a result,
the stick begins to sense the obstacle with the help of
ultrasonic sensor, the presence of water ahead the path is
sensed by rain sensor, while the condition whether light or
darkness is sensed using LDR and all these parameters once
found is delivered as voice commands through the paired
android mobile application via Bluetooth communication.
The 5v power supply battery can be replaced or recharged
once when the charge is found to be drained.
6. RESULTS
The outputs are verified and inspected for a continuous
usage of our 3 days till when the charge gets drained. This
being user friendly in the way it is designed proves better
mode of usage avoiding hardships from existing ones. The
designed prototype model can able to detect the obstacle in
the straight path, right angle path and the curved path when
moved the stick. At least 1m width is required for theproper
management of the stick so that the circuit connections
avoid shorting. The ultrasonic sensor enables wide range
obstacle information. Major drawback of sensors is their
non-linear response i.e. a big change in output voltage does
not always indicate a big change in range. Apart from these

user is guided for clear path by considering various
environmental factors such as rain or presence of water,
obstacle, darkness in the region. With the help of this stick,
user can improve more than 25-40% travel speed, that
reduces collision between them, and it provides increased
safety as compared to unaided equipments. All the concepts
of the proposed system were checked for their output and
proper functioning. Using this technology we can help the
visually challenged people navigatesafelyandfreelywithout
any accidents.
Fig -5: Output screen on app
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The authors are grateful to theauthoritiesof Dr.Mahalingam
College of Engineering and Technology, Pollachi, for the
facilities.
REFERENCES
[1] W. Docbelle Artificial Vision for the blind by Connecting
a Television Camera to the Brain, ASAIO Journal, Vol:46,
page 3-9,2000
[2] R. L. A. Kuranov and V. Pisarevsky, An empirical analysis
of boosting algorithms for rapid objects with an
extended set of Haarlike features,Intel Technical Report
MRLTR-July 02-01, 2002.
[3] Smart Cane Assisted Mobility for the Visually Impaired,
World Academy of Science, Engineering and technology
International Journal andInformationEngineeringVol:6
No:10,2012
[4] Pogue, David (November 4, 2009). “A Place to Put Your
Apps” New York Times. Retrieved January 22, 2013.

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