Advancement in Smart Cane Technology: Enhancing Mobility for the Visually Impaired Using ROS and LiDAR

Visual impairment affects the ability to navigate independently in an unknown environment due to reliance on human/dog assistance, potential miscommunication, and discomfort during mobility. To make the visually impaired (VI) individuals self-reliant and confident in their mobility the proposed system has been developed that contains a light detection and ranging (LiDAR) sensor for obstacle detection and two omni-wheels coupled with the DC gear encoder motors for precise movement in any direction without lifting the cane. Hector Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM), A *, and steering wheel algorithms have been implemented in the robot operating system (ROS) for real-time environment mapping, efficient path planning, and navigating in an unknown indoor static environment, respectively. The Raspberry Pi 3B+ and Arduino Mega 2560 are used in the master-slave configuration for decision-making on path planning and controlling the maneuverability of the system in real-time. The proposed system in the paper is successfully tested on one subject in two indoor environments. The results demonstrate that the system serves as an assistive mobile robot, helping the VI individual to navigate confidently in an unknown environment and reach the destination without assistance.