Sonar assistive device for visually impaired people

Abstract

An affordable sonar assistive device was developed to facilitate the visually impaired people to walk inside or outside their homes. The device uses a sonar technology where each ultrasonic sensor consists of a transmitter and a receiver. The transmitter will transmit a signal to an obstacle in front of it and when the signal reaches an obstacle, the signal is reflected back. The reflected signal is then received by the receiver. The system of Arduino Pro Mini will then evaluate the echo to identify the presence t of the obstacles. This ultrasonic sensor can detect obstacles as far as 4 meters. Hands-on testing was conducted to identify visually impaired people needs and to provide them an opportunity to use the device. The users were interviewed to find out about their experience. The results clearly show that 90% of the users were satisfied with the features of the device and they were also confident of using the device to detect different types of obstacles.