Radio Frequency Identification Walking Stick (RFIWS): A device for the blind

The paper outlines the project undertaken in developing prototype of Radio Frequency Identification Walking Stick (RFIWS). The device intended to assist the blind during walking on a sidewalk. Many of the blind people used the traditional method like dog and old design of walking stick as their guide to walk on the sidewalk. The limitation of this method is the blind people must walk closely to the border of the sidewalk and use the walking stick to find out their current location. This will be exposing the blind to the risk like fallout from the sidewalk. The application of RFID will enhance the conventional method in term of detecting and estimating the distance between the blind and the sidewalk border. The project objective is to develop a walking stick prototype by utilizing Radio Frequency Identification (RFID). A review of assistive technology was presented in this paper together with RFID application in China, France and Thailand. This paper also describes a RFID function and its components explicitly a tag, reader and middleware include a relevant frequency for RFID. The experimental works intended in this project will cover antenna polarization, tag performance, tag orientation sensitivity and tag communication distance for ultra high frequency (UHF). The project also includes development of hardware, software and integration of hardware and software.