Development of Sophisticated Smart Blind Stick

Using GSM and GPS

K. C. T. Swamy(B) , Boya Uday Kumar, N. Usha Kiran, P. Shankar Goud,

Y. Sai Vamshi, and N. Akhil Yadav

G. Pullaiah College of Engineering and Technology, Kurnool 518 452, India

[email protected]

Abstract. Original idea of our paper/project is to develop a blind stick that can be
multi-functional and helpful for blind people in their daily usage. Usually in most
of the scenarios, blind-people use their hands for seeking help, and most of the
people who are blind are literally dependent for guidance. This dependance and
helplessness makes blind people not being progressive in their respective fields
and ultimately it is leading to the depression of blind people. Normal sugarcane
blind sticks don’t even recognize the snugs or stumbling blocks present in nearby
areas of blind people and as a result people end up in getting accidents. Therefore,
in our paper, sophisticated smart blind stick’s been designed, developed to help
the blind people and provide them an obstacle-free path. This project consists
of an ultra-sonic sensor fixed to the user’s stick. This ultrasonic sensor helps in
detecting the obstacles which are there on the path of the blind people. If the
sensor detects the obstacle, then the outputs like buzzer and vibration motor gets
triggered as per program dumped in the Arduino UNO, and as a result the user will
get to know the obstacles and act accordingly. This way they will be free from the
little accidents that are caused due to the obstacles in front of them. Additionally,
GSM and GPS are also added to help blind people in navigation and aid them
from dangerous accidents. GPS module helps in navigation. GSMs are useful in
transferring/sending the SMS of live location to the guardians of the blind people
and the control room as well. Thus, our sophisticated smart blind stick helps the
blind people to walk without any fears and it is a smart electronic. Therefore, this
device will be the perfect answer for overcoming the fears and troubles of visually
impaired people.

Keywords: Arduino UNO · Ultrasonic Sensor · GSM Module · GPS Module

1 Introduction
Vision impairment is a sort of impairment where someone’s eyesight is reduced to a
level that it can’t even be corrected to the usual level. Therefore, full correction is almost
impossible with the help of glasses, contact lenses, medication or the vision surgery. In the
present scenario 2.3 billion populations are facing the vision impairment which might be
near or far distance impairment. Half of these cases which is a cumbersome of 1.1 billion
people face very severe distance impairment or blindness. There are many strategies

© The Author(s) 2023

B. Raj et al. (Eds.): ICETE 2023, AER 223, pp. 11–17, 2023.
https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6463-252-1_3
12 K. C. T. Swamy et al.

which are been followed in the market in order to deal with the vision impairment
problems such as vision rehabilitation, guiding dogs, personal trainers and helpers, white
sugar canes normal blind sticks. A recent trend has been a lot of research that focused on
the design of smart sticks. Manikanta et al. [1] used an Arduino NANO with an ultrasonic
sensor and buzzer to detect the deterrent force. Pratik et al. [2] used a Raspberry Pi
microcontroller to control ultrasonic and infrared sensors to detect obstacles. Wall MI
et al. [3] operated a smart stick pic16f877, a microcontroller, and an ultrasonic sensor for
detecting snags, and tasked them for sending signals to the ISD1932 recorder/playback
and this recorder and speaker associate is proposed. Additionally, Mohad Helmy et al.
[4] used different software called MPLAB for programming an ultrasonic sensor and
microcontroller to detect tripping blocks. Ayatt Nada et al. [5] integrated water sensor
that detects the presence of water regardless of water level. Its use is to alert the user to
the presence of water. Ashraf Anwar et al. [6] integrated thermal sensors with ultrasonic
and water sensors. Later Vipual et al. [7] used an ultrasonic sensor, humidity sensor with
a microcontroller. When the sensor identifies the snugs/deterrents, the microcontroller
sends a signal to buzzer to warn the user. Roland et al. [8] integrated all sensors and
confirmed the accuracy of the system in terms of results. Vinay et al. [9] used his GORE
in the design and also developed a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) operating
in the low frequency band. Manikandan et al. [10] integrated all sensors and his RFID
module into a microcontroller and confirmed that the system worked accurately. All
these strategies are slight high in price and less effective in reality. Vision rehabilitation
is very costly, guiding dogs are not so effective in reality, personal trainers and helpers
are costly, and white sugar cane sticks are very less effective in the current scenario.
So, this paper contains an effective alternative to all these problems- sophisticated smart
blind stick using GSM and GPS modules. Here we have integrated ultrasonic, LDR
sensors and added GSM and GPS modules for knowing the location of the person in
hazardous situation.

2 Related Work

The work in this paper presents our structured plan and the execution of an Arduino-
ultrasonic sensor-GSM-GPS-based blind stick for a disabled individual. An ultrasonic
sensor module is used for the impediment or obstacle discovery in the way of visually
impaired individual, and a buzzer is utilized to alert the users or to make the individual
cautions. The complete proposed framework is been implemented on the Arduino UNO
board. Blind people use white sugar cane sticks to help in the obstruction identification.
They (daze people) also tend to use guide canines (guide dogs) for guiding them and
all these methods are ineffective. So, we are making a new, versatile, effective, straight
forward and less expensive framework that will permit the visually impaired people
to walk through the natural and new conditions without any guidance of guides. The
frameworks also include the integration of LDR sensor to detect the presence of light in
the surroundings. And additionally, framework is designed with GPS [11–14] module
to track the position of the blind user, and GSM module is integrated to send a message
to their guardians, friends, control room when the user feels like he/she is in danger.
 Development of Sophisticated Smart Blind Stick Using GSM and GPS 13

In this work, we have introduced a sophisticated smart electronic stick for visually
challenged people. Our sophisticated smart sugar stick compromises of Ultrasonic sen-
sor, LDR sensor. These sensors are executed and programmed using a microcontroller
(Arduino UNO). Our stick can detect the obstacles which lie in the range of 2m from the
blind people. Our project and paper aim to provide a very affordable, reliable, sophis-
ticated smart cane which would help the visually challenged people to navigate very
freely. In the annals of the world history, people have been suffering from many dis-
abilities that are related to vision. So, the main purpose and the objective of our paper
is based on encountering the disabilities of blindness by designing the microcontroller
based electronic hardware that can corroborate the visually impaired user to detect the
obstacles in front of them.

3 Proposed Method
After going through all the previous versions of blind sticks, we have made so many
extensions and came to a conclusion and to put it in a nutshell: The main working of
our stick is detecting an obstacle or gadgets for blind people. Our stick design consists
of an external battery and it provides a 6V force supply to the entire circuit. Ultrasonic
sensors are used in the circuit for detecting the obstacles. In order to decide the distance
of an obstacle or object, compute the distance between the obstacle using, [Distance] =
Speed*Time.
Speed of the object going through air is around 341m/s. Time is determined between
the obstacle and getting back the message. Distance travelled by the signal is double, so
it is divided by two, therefore: [Distance] = *Distance/2.
We have integrated two ultrasonic sensors, one at the bottom, other at the middle of
the stick with 30cm, 50cm range detection respectively. And LDR sensor is also added
to detect the presence of light in the atmosphere. Also, external switch is connected for
triggering. Buzzer and Vibrator are also integrated for alert system. Therefore, when
sensors detect an obstacle, then buzzer will ring and parallelly vibration motor will start
vibrating the stick. Thus, user will be alerted and then act accordingly.
Apart from these sensors, we have used GSM and GPS modules to make the stick so
sophisticated and smart with the advancement in the features. GPS is utilized for knowing
the coordinated of the location of the user and the location will be sent as message if at
all the user triggers the switch in case of dangerous situations. GSM module is integrated
to send the message of the location to the guardians/friends and control room in case of
hazardous situations. GPS module would always keep on updating the location, while
GSM module would turn on after triggering of the external switch. Thus, message of
the coordinates would only be sent only when triggered on external switch (Fig. 1).
Arduino UNO
The ATmega328p microcontroller is termed as Arduino UNO board. It contains USB
port for communication with laptops. Arduino UNO has input-output pins for interaction
with the outside environment. USB cables are used to connect the Arduino with laptops
and the dumping of programs is done through these cables. The software used to write
the code is Arduino IDE.
14 K. C. T. Swamy et al.

ULTRASONIC SENSOR

MICRO LDR SENSOR

POWER CONTROLLER
SUPPLY (ARDUINO UNO) GSM MODULE

GPS MODULE

VIBRATION
BUZZER MOTOR
Fig. 1. Block-diagram of proposed method

Ultrasonic Sensors
HC-SR04 ultrasonic sensor works similar to that of bats, it uses SONAR method
to measure the distance between the two objects. Mainly these sensors are used for
impediment detection and obstacle detection. Darkness will affect the sensor working
and soothing materials like silk detection is little tough for ultrasonic sensor. It has both
transmitter and receiver.
LDR Sensor
LDR is called as a light dependent resistor and it completely depends on light. The
main functionality depends on the presence of light. LDR fluctuates depending on the
availability of light in the atmosphere. If light is there in the atmosphere, then it remains
off, but when light is absent in the atmosphere, then LDR gets turned on, and light will
glow.
Vibration Motor
Vibration motor is used for vibration. These motors mostly work similar to that of
mobile phone when the input given is high. Vibration will start once it is connected to a
battery and it will off if not connected. These vibrators generate a noticeable vibration
effect on the blind stick which alerts the user.
Buzzer
Buzzer is a little inexpensive part but very effective in terms of work. It produces a
beep with high frequency. This buzzer requires power supply. And this battery acquires
some 1.3–1.4v of energy from the external battery. It is mostly connected to the switching
circuit and it allows it to be turned ON or OFF at preferable intervals.

4 Experimental Results
Figure (2) illustrates the suggested design for the circuit diagram of the sophisticated
smart blind stick, internal design and integration and the complete structure of the
sophisticated smart blind stick.
In 2(a), it’s the initial circuit connections and it was taken during the initial stages
of our project development. In 2(b), it’s the penultimate connections of our circuit on
 Development of Sophisticated Smart Blind Stick Using GSM and GPS 15

Fig. 2. The proposed blind stick results a) Blind stick initial circuit b) Internal structure of blind
stick c) Complete structure of sophisticated smart blind stick d) Message to the guardians when
he/she’s in danger

the blind stick, and it was taken during the medieval stages of our project development.
In 2(c), it’s the ultimate final connections of entire circuit on the blind stick. Ultrasonic,
LDR sensors, buzzers, and the vibrating motor are integrated on the blind stick. This
was taken during the penultimate stages of our project. In 2(d), it’s the Screenshot of
the message in guardian’s phone and it comes from the GSM in the smart stick to the
guardian/friend of that blind person. This is the keen result of our project, a message of the
location along with the GPS coordinates will be sent to the important contacts/guardians
and friends of the user when switch is triggered.
Figure-3(a) consists of a person holding the sophisticated smart blind stick. Figure-
3(b) consists of the blind stick detecting the obstacle in front of it using ultrasonic sensors.
After detecting the stumbling blocks, alert system is been activated by ringing buzzer
and vibrating the vibration motor. Therefore, the person after these alert systems, acts
accordingly and gets rid of obstacles.
Figure-3(c) consists of person using our stick for confidently climbing the stairs.
Incase if the user feels troublesome, he can press the external switch. This will help in
sending the message of the actual location of the user to their guardians/friends. And
the buzzer will give continuous beep sound until the user gets help from people. Once
the external switch is turned off, then the beep sound will be turned off.
Figure-3(d) consists of person using our stick in night times. Here due to the presence
of LDR sensor, it detects the presence of light in surroundings. As the user is using our
stick in night times, LDR detects the absence of light and turns on the LED and this light
will help ultrasonic sensor in detecting the snugs during night times also. Blind people
are been helped in all sort of cases & from all hazardous situations.
16 K. C. T. Swamy et al.

Fig. 3. a) Person holding it b) Stick detecting the obstacle and ringing the buzzer c) Stick helping
the person on stairs d) LDR turning on in the absence of light

5 Conclusion

The sophisticated smart blind stick using GSM and GPS has been at last made into a
working model which can direct or guide the visually impaired (blind or gaze) people.
It intends to fix the problems faced in previous alternatives for guiding the blind people.
It mainly focusses on solving the stumbling blocks faced by the blind people. In all
scenarios it helps in alerting the user after the detection of the obstacles in the path. In case
of extreme dangers, the user can trigger the external switch for sending the message of
location coordinates to their guardians/friends and control room. This way the framework
and design of the sophisticated smart blind stick takes the action to guarantee the user’s
security. Thus, our project helps all the visually impaired people around the world and
makes them to walk anywhere without any fear. Therefore, our stick eradicates the fear
of walking alone in the visually impaired people by properly guiding them. In a nutshell,
our sophisticated smart blind stick assists the visually impaired people and handicapped
people, along with that our stick helps them to cope up with their lives without any
fear of walking. Our stick makes the lives of visually impaired people/gaze people/blind
people/handicapped people so simple, simpler, and the simplest by assisting them.

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