Vision impaired individuals suffer from the lack of surrounding information which makes moving around very hard for them. In this work, a smart belt is designed to assist the blind in detecting obstacles and holes in front of them. Upon detection, the smart belt will notify the user by means of a textual audio message. The device utilizes a Raspberry Pie single-board computer as well as two ultrasonic sensors as the main component. Test results indicate that the system manages to provide accurate measurement of the distance to the obstacles with +- 1cm error. The system has been designed to cater gait movement as well as the variability of flat surface. This is important to avoid false positive and false negative alarm to the user. Using the belt is very convenient as compared to the white stick. It is easy to wear on the waist and once activated the device shall auto-calibrate its distance to the ground before obstacle/hole detection mode is activated automatically a few seconds later.
