Project
# | Title | Team Members | TA | Documents | Sponsor |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
25 | Hands-Free Support for the Visually Impaired |
Arrian Movahedi Napat Sutthasinwong Yash Agrawal |
Kexin Hui | design_document0.pdf final_paper0.pdf presentation0.pptx proposal0.pdf |
|
According to the World Health Organization, there are roughly 253 million people in the world who are visually impaired, of which 36 million are blind. The most commonly used aid is the walking cane, but it has its limitations. We propose to make daily life easier for the visually impaired by creating a device that enables them to sense their environment via ultrasonic sensors. In order to make the project appropriate for ECE 445, we think that it should be hands-free, allow 360 degree obstacle detection, and be as non-invasive as possible. We will use thru-beam ultrasonic sensors mounted on a vest in order to detect nearby objects. Typically such sensors have to be triggered with an on-signal to send out a pulse. We’d set up a state machine through a microcontroller such that it sends the trigger pulses at the right time and duration. Once the pulse bounces back, the microcontroller would then calculate the distance from the object and output a signal that could trigger an audio circuit. The audio circuit would alert the user of obstacles based on the direction in which they are detected. One solution would be to use comparators for the microcontroller output and see what range of voltage it lies in and output an audio signal with its amplitude inversely proportional to the echo pulse (a shorter echo pulse means that the object is closer). The output of the audio circuit would drive an open-ear headphone to alert the user and remain as non-invasive as possible. Air temperature and wind speed would be the main sources of detection error. Our criterion for success are that the device should detect objects and people all around the user, and the detection error should not exceed 5 inches. - Arrian Movahedi (net ID: mm13) - Napat Sutthasinwong (net ID: sutthas2) - Yash Agrawal (net ID: yagrawl2) Link to the original idea post : https://courses.engr.illinois.edu/ece445/pace/view-topic.asp?id=27344 |