Advisory Committee Chair
Abidin Yildirim
Advisory Committee Members
Arie Nakhmani
Leon Jololian
Franklin R Ramther
Document Type
Thesis
Date of Award
2019
Degree Name by School
Master of Electrical Engineering (MEE) School of Engineering
Abstract
The visually impaired people mostly rely on a blind cane or specially trained the dogs (Guide dogs) to help them walk or cross the road safely. However, the white canes are for only avoiding obstacles on the roadway and training the guide dogs is a long-term process. Deficiency of reliable assistive tools, traffic accidents seem to be inevitable, especially to visually impaired or blind people. In order to address this problem and decrease the accidents of this nature, technologically more advanced and intelligent tools are necessary. This proposed thesis work will help visually impaired individuals, without affecting their daily activities and habits, improve their quality of life and their safety on the street and crosswalk areas. Since this solution will not require any changes in existing infrastructure, so it will not cost extra for the local governments or cities. This Thesis work aims to design, develop, and fabricate an assisting device, which will be capable of identifying and accurately interpret pedestrian traffic light to assist the visually impaired individuals by crossing the streets on crosswalk areas safely. Using a low cost, and off-the-shelve available camera module and an embedded computer, it will capture the surrounding image and process it to identify the traffic lights of interest. Then, according to the required direction of the crosswalk, the device will notify the person through the modulated vibration when the crosswalk is safe to cross. The vibration is produced by a mini DC vibration motor on the device. Besides, the wearability of the device, it will also be cost-effective solution and convenient in use.
Recommended Citation
Wang, Jiayue, "An Assistive Device That Aids The Visiually Imparied People To The Crosswalk" (2019). All ETDs from UAB. 3263.
https://digitalcommons.library.uab.edu/etd-collection/3263