Shoe-Drishti : Smart Shoe for Visually Impaired

Compassion towards differently able people is need of the hour as by making them cope up their problems we can bring them to normalcy and tap their potential. The utmost challenge for a visually impaired person becomes walking to the much unknown or dynamic pathways in their respective place of work or living. There are various kinds of hindrances on our work place, market or places of casual visits including dumps, furniture, stair cases, animals on street, vehicles parked in no parking zones, selling carts and other general obstacles etc. This work is based on the very basic premise of how visually impaired people can be eased out with a better system for mobility. I have designed and developed a shoe for visually impaired people which can help them walk with more confidence. This self-charging and haptic shoe will vibrate upon detection of an obstacle way before the person may hit it. The vibration alarm signal is currently programmed to get invoked at the frontal proximity of 55cm and sideways proximity of 20cm. The vibration is given at various points of the feet to make the person aware about the direction at which the obstacle is present. This is very cost effective (approximately Rs. 2600/-) solution and named as “Shoe-drishti” meaning “सुदृष्टि” (beautiful eye) in hindi. This product works on the principle of ultrasonic distance calculation and piezoelectricity.