Design of a Road- side Threat Alert System for Deaf Pedestrians

Listening is an important human skill which plays a vital role in our day to day life. Moreover, the reactions of people are very much correlated to the sounds they hear. Thus, deaf people have to undergo many difficulties in identifying threats when walking along roads. Many deaf pedestrians have lost their lives when walking along a road or crossing a road. Although many devices that support deaf pedestrians are being employed around the world, most of those devices are very expensive and also do not provide a detailed notification to the user. Hence, an improved deaf pedestrian assisting device is highly preferred.

This paper proposes an electronic road-side threat alert system which would be a handy device to assist deaf pedestrians to identify objects moving behind them such as vehicles & other threats. With the help of this wearable device, they would be able to sense the environment around them. The proposed system is based on a microcontroller hosting a Bayesian classifier unit and an array of ultrasonic sensors for distance measuring. The notification to the deaf pedestrian is provided via a set of vibrating motors. A prototype implemented has demonstrated very good accuracy in the identification of threats at a low cost.