Material Detecting Glove for Blind People

Blind people identify materials by touching them and decide by the previous experience they have. But this is not an accurate method when some coatings were applied. The aim of this research is to design a material-detecting glove for blind people that will help them to understand and feel better about the surroundings. While investigating existing literature and technologies which support blind people it was found that many methods were available to avoid obstacles, some to detect the distance, the location, color of an object surface and to read braille but no device to detect materials. The principal theory behind the design is based on capacitive proximity sensing. First investigated the effects of dielectric constants of different single and two-layer target materials for the variations of sensor head capacitance (∆C). Then a mathematical function for ∆C was derived using the method of image theory in electrostatics, for two layers of the material case. Then the derived results were verified by simulations in MATLAB®. Finally, plots were obtained, and observations and data required for the design were collected. A variable was derived which is used for the calibration of the sensor with respect to the different materials and was investigated through experiments carried out. By selecting the appropriate electronic components and utilizing the research data with several testing, the material-detecting glove with wireless communication facility was designed and implemented successfully.