Image Processing Application in Controlling the Robotic Cane to Support the Blind Maintain Balance When Moving

Abstract

The hardware design of a robotic cane to support the blind people to walk is proposed. Especailly, the
application of the image processing method to determine navigate lines of the blind people is presented in this
paper. The PD controller applied to control the motion of the robotic cane to follow the navigate lines while the
robotic cane supports the blind to walk is also discussed. Moreover, the nonlinear disturbance observer to
estimate human forces is applied to the robotic cane to control its motion to help the blind to maintain balancing
more conveniently. Experiment results on the hardware design of the robotic cane indicate that the controller
works well to support the blind to walk following the navigate lines.