Title: An ultrasonic sensor driven obstacle detection and localisation system in 3D space for visually impaired persons

Authors: Bhupendra Singh; Monit Kapoor

Addresses: School of Computer Science, University of Petroleum and Energy Studies, Dehradun, India ' School of Computer Science, University of Petroleum and Energy Studies, Dehradun, India

Abstract: There are several challenges faced by visually impaired persons while travelling through the outdoor environment. The white cane most commonly used by them for obstacle detection in their route has its limitation with the inability to detect obstacles above waist height. Due to this limitation, the visually impaired persons very commonly face head injury. In this work, we have developed eyeglasses that consist of two ultrasonic sensors and two buzzers for obstacle detection and localisation. The location of the obstacle in 3D space is conveyed to the user with varying frequency patterns through the buzzers. The 3D location of the obstacle is conveyed in terms of laterality, elevation and depth information. Upon testing the system for the effectiveness in detecting the obstacle in 3D space, it is found as 70.5% laterality detection rate, 70.5% elevation detection rate and 80.8% depth detection rate. Upon comparing our results with similar works reported in the literature as a state of the art, our system performs better.

Keywords: assistive technology; electronic travel aids; ETAs; healthcare; sensors; visual impairment; white cane.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBET.2023.130836

International Journal of Biomedical Engineering and Technology, 2023 Vol.41 No.4, pp.394 - 410

Received: 22 Sep 2020
Accepted: 25 Mar 2021
Published online: 12 May 2023 *

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