Colour detector for visual impaired users

Abstract

As per the first prototype developed (ultrasonic glove for visual impaired users [1]) a follow-up discussion with a teacher and several students of the Special School for the Visually Impaired in Cluj-Napoca regarding how other other devices may help the life of a visual impaired person. They underlined out the difficulty of matching colours on clothes. This is the reason for this research for available solutions for a colour detecting sensor that can work on the same platform and fulfils the same principals: cost-effective, easy-to-use, portable and low-battery consumption. TCS230 was the best fit for this purpose, an optical colour sensor. Based on the values the sensor reads for red, green and blue, the software decides what colour is displayed in front of the sensor. The prototype that was build can read to the user 11 colours. In order to add more colours in the near future s and also to be able to maintain the prototype effectively, it was decided to use a development board, not to build a smaller scale of it using only the microchip and other components needed.