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A Navigation Aid for Blind People

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Abstract

This paper presents a navigation aid for the blind based on a microcontroller with synthetic speech output. The system consists of two vibrators, two ultrasonic sensors mounted on the user’s shoulders and another one integrated into the cane. It is able to give information to the blind about urban walking routes and to provide real-time information on the distance of over-hanging obstacles within 6 m along the travel path ahead of the user. The suggested system can then sense the surrounding environment via sonar sensors and sending vibro-tactile feedback to the user of the position of the closest obstacles in range. For the ultrasonic cane, it is used to detect any obstacle on the ground. Experimental results show the effectiveness of the proposed system for blind navigation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electronics, Laboratory of Automatic and Signals, University of Annaba, Annaba, 23000, Algeria

    Mounir Bousbia-Salah & Allal Larbi

  2. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Sharjah, Sharjah, P.O. Box: 27272, United Arab Emirates

    Maamar Bettayeb

Authors
  1. Mounir Bousbia-Salah
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  2. Maamar Bettayeb
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  3. Allal Larbi
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Correspondence to Mounir Bousbia-Salah.

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Bousbia-Salah, M., Bettayeb, M. & Larbi, A. A Navigation Aid for Blind People. J Intell Robot Syst 64, 387–400 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10846-011-9555-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10846-011-9555-7

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