Portable navigation device for blind people

Abstract

Vision is one of the most important senses that helps people interact with the real world. Commonly visually impaired develop their other senses to feel their surroundings, but in certain cases, this is not enough. The senses can be disturbed by noise or illness. For this reason, many artifacts have been developed to help this group of people. Artifacts such as white canes or guide dogs help sightless to move around in their surroundings. This article proposes the use of a system that detects and recognizes nearby obstacles, giving an audible warning in order to avoid a collision. The prototype is wireless with the purpose to be comfortable for the user. The system helps sightless to move around in indoor or outdoor environments. The objectives of the system are to detect obstacles that white canes or guide dogs cannot, expanding their range of detection.