Development of walking assistance robot for the blind

摘要

For safe walking of the people who are blind, walking assistance robot which can detecting and avoiding the obstacle was investigated. The implemented prototype walking assistance robot consists of a obstacle detecting module, a user interface using acoustic signal and a driving module. The obstacle detecting module uses 6 ultrasonic sensors those located at the front part of the robot can perceive the obstacle which is in 3 meter distances and <TEX>$180^{\circ}$</TEX> degrees. It calculates the distance and degree from the obstacle using TOF (time of flight) method and decides the 3-dimensional location of the obstacle. The obstacle information is delivered to the user using acoustic alarm and guide sound. The robot is designed to avoid by itself when the obstacle is detecting and the user only follows it to safe walking. After the designed robot was implemented, driving and obstacle detecting experiments were carried out. The result showed that the designed walking assistance robot will help the people who are blind to walk around safe.