FORESIGHT - A novel design of travel aid for the blind

More than 10% of the population in developing countries suffers from blindness. Those impaired can be suffering from birth or eventually might have lost their sight. The `Foresight', a novel technology brought out in this paper provides a new, multiple sensor facility with a distance and speed prediction algorithm to aid the visually impaired. A five independent Ultrasonic sensors with a distance and speed detection of the obstacles will help the blind person to navigate the path as he moves. The averaging algorithm proposed will make spurious dynamic changes in the obstacles to be more measurable and help to develop a robust system. The technology proposed in developing the aid for visually impaired has been transferred on to a set of customized microcontroller target boards in the form of a wearable device. The product has been tested on visually impaired children in blind school and the ease of movement of the blind while wearing the proposed device and the other existing devices have been compared.