Development of Speech and Text to Braille Script Converter for Blind and Deaf People

Abstract

Blindness, deafness and deaf blindness are inabilities which cause less interaction and communication between normal people and physically challenged people. This condition does not only affect communication between people but also acts as barrier for gaining knowledge and being educated. Considering the problem, and after researching solutions, a project model is developed that helps people with physical challenges, specifically for blind and deaf people to communicate with people around them easily. The proposed model consists of a speech or text to Braille which is programmed, stacked in Raspberry Pi Zero and connected to a web server with the help of NODEMCU 12E which has an inbuild Wi-Fi module. To communicate in bi-directional, the image input of Braille or physical input through push buttons by the blind and deaf people is also installed where all these speech to Braille, image processing, Braille to text and voice conversion processes are carried out by the programs loaded in Raspberry Pi Zero. As an additional communication device, for people who can understand the speaking language, a piezoelectric transducer is used as a vibration device which vibrates according to the audio input and can be heard through bone-conduction method.