Multipurpose Smart Shoe for Various Communities

Abstract

A recent survey depicts that across the globe there are nearly 36 million visually impaired people facing serious issues in accessibility, education, navigating public spaces, safety concerns, and mental health. In recent times, the evolutions of obstacle detectors for blind people have been from peoples’ use of sticks, smart glasses, and smart shoes. Among the above, the major problem faced by all blind people is to walk independently to every place, so to make them feel independent while they walk, herein is a proposal for an intelligent shoe. The proposed intelligent shoe consists of a controller connected with an ultrasonic sensor, voice alert system (VAS), vibration patterns, GPS navigation, connectivity with a smart phone or smart-watch, voice assistance, feedback on gait and posture, and emergency features that are embedded with each other to communicate the presence of obstacles in the directions of the path of the blind. The sensor identifies an obstacle in the direction present then it passes the signal to the controller that activates the VAS and the vibration patterns present in that direction. Therefore, by the proposed concept of vibration sense and VAS with GPS navigation, connectivity with a smart phone or smart-watch means the system provides easy access for the blind to identify obstacles present in their way and help them toward social inclusion.

Keywords

• Arduino board
• ultrasonic sensor
• vibrator
• voice alert system (VAS)