Visual Understanding and Navigation for the Visually Impaired Using Image Captioning

Visually impaired people face problems with independent navigation due to limited visual information. Facing significant challenges, they often travel with an assistant or their relative. This project introduces an approach, increasing the independence of a blind user by developing new software solutions. The proposed system employs DenseNet201 for feature extraction and Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) networks for generating accurate, context-aware captions. These captions are converted into real-time auditory descriptions using the gTTS library, enabling users to interpret and navigate their environment confidently. Evaluated on the Flickr8k dataset, the system achieved a BLEU score of 0.721, demonstrating its ability to generate high-quality captions. The system's architecture is designed to balance accuracy, efficiency, and user accessibility. Additionally, the system incorporates a modular architecture optimized for computational efficiency and scalability. Future work includes exploring wearable technology for continuous real-time feedback, integrating advanced natural language processing (NLP) models for richer contextual understanding, and enhancing its applicability in complex indoor and outdoor environments. This approach represents a significant step toward empowering visually impaired individuals with improved mobility and environmental awareness.