Depth Camera Based Navigation System for Blind People Assistance

Blind humans are confronted with numerous difficulties on the subject of spending their regular lives. This research study investigates the efficacy of the diverse systems developed for the navigational assistance of blind and visually impaired humans and proposes a new system. While traditional systems rely on the development of assisting hardware such as canes, suits and sticks, our proposed system explores the utilization of depth cameras. In contrast to the general cameras, the depth cameras can provide the distance of the object from the camera, in the field of view. This information in conjunction with image processing has been utilized in the current research work for efficient identification of obstacles and provision of accurate navigational directives. Currently, the proposed system can inform the user of any object(s) appearing in their frontal path and suggest directions to bypass the object. Validation of the system was performed in real-time and it suggests the system has a high potential for practical use.