Design and Testing of a Practical Smart Walking Cane for the Visually Impaired

A visually-impaired person, including the completely blind, normally uses a guiding stick for assistance while walking around and performing the daily tasks. The normal non-smart stick is limited to the little information gathered through its tip by touching the encountered objects. In this paper, we present a smart blind cane design that helps the visually-impaired users cope with their daily tasks and make their lives easier. We have added smartness to a light-weight stick by applying several technologies, including the ultrasound sensor that detects barriers of various shapes and types, the GPS/GSM technology that helps the users locate places and move from one place to another with the aid of a communication system, and the speech recognition technology that facilitates interactive communication between the user and the cane. Our practical tests show that the user is able to make speech commands to the stick that can subsequently call a pre-saved phone number, in addition to the effective ability of avoiding obstacles. Moreover, the smart stick can be programmed so that a pre-authorized person can call the stick and determine its GPS location for safety purposes.