Smart stick for blind people with wireless emergency notification

Abstract

This effort develops and uses a smart stick to help blind individuals walk more safely and avoid hazards. This research paper involved to develop smart stick for blind people to help them to walk safely by avoiding obstructions, and at emergency conditions sent their location to person in charge like a doctor or relatives to help them accordingly. Three ultrasonic sensors are used in the proposed device’s architecture to detect obstructions at three different heights, low, mid, and high obstructions using speaker to alert the blind person. An emergency message with the location of the blind person’s phone is sent through a mobile app to the doctor or person in charge whenever the designed smart stick’s emergency button is touched, or the stick is dropped down. The Arduino Uno platform, Bluetooth model, MPU-6050 3-axis gyroscope as a position sensor, and microSd card module has been used to effectively implement the stick. At the testing stage, the device gave good results. The user received notifications in the form of voice messages and vibrations from the smart stick when it detects things or obstacles in front of them. Additionally, even though they cannot directly activate it, the automated emergency condition has been detection and activated.