proposal of braille tutor-437,446,447,448
TRANSCRIPT
TRIBHUVAN UNIVERSITY
Institute of Engineering
Final Year Project Proposal on
"BRAILLE TUTOR"
Submitted to
Department of Electronics and Computer Engineering
Pulchowk Campus , I.O.E
July 9, 2009
Submitted by
SAMPURNA BHATTACHAN [062BEX437]
SUSHIL ADHIKARI [062BEX446]
SWAPNIL RANJIT [062BEX447]
VIVEK RAJ SHRESTHA [062BEX448]
To,
Mr. Surendra Shrestha
(Project Coordinator)
Department of Electronics and Computer Engineering,
IOE, Pulchowk Campus, Lalitpur
Subject: Proposal Submission
Sir,
This is a proposal for final year project under the course EG777EX offered
by Department of Electronics and Computer Engineering, Pulchowk Campus, IOE. This
proposal is submitted to the department referring to the notice
published in the department notice board.
Our proposal entitled “BRAILLE TUTOR” proposes to build a computer based system
that is able to teach Braille script to blind people.
Hereby the proposal is submitted for your kind perusal and approval.
Yours Sincerely,
SAMPURNA BHATTACHAN [062BEX437]
SUSHIL ADHIKARI [062BEX446]
SWAPNIL RANJIT [062BEX447]
VIVEK RAJ SHRESTHA [062BEX448]
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
We would like to express our sincere thanks to the Department of Electronics and Computer Department for providing us the opportunity to explore our interest and ideas in the field of engineering through this project.
The course "Innovation for future team leaders of BE project" organized by Dr. Jyoti Tandukar gave us chance to present and refine our project ideas. We would like to thank him for organizing this course and acknowledge his contribution in making us capable of pursuing this noble project.We are also very thankful to Mr Uttam Mali and Mr Pradhumna Lal Shrestha.
We are equally indebted to our project coordinator Dr. Surendra Shrestha for providing suggestions and guidelines for the project preparation. Finally, We would like to offer our gratitude to everyone who have directly or indirectly inspired us for this project .
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgement
Abstract
1. Introduction …………………………………………………………………1
2. Literature review……………………………………………………………2
3. Methodology …….…………………………………………………………3
3.1 Hardware Environment ………………………………………………3
3.2 Software Environment………………………………………………..4
4.Work Division …………………………………………………………..8
5. Application and Scope ………………………….…………….…………9
6. Project schedule …………………………………………………………..10
7. Bibiliography ………………………………………………….…………..11
ABSTRACT
Braille Tutor provides a beginner level platform for the blind people wanting to learn Braille characters for the first time. Braille Tutor will have mainly two parts: Voice to Braille conversion and Braille to Voice conversion. It will have microphone for voice input, 3X2 matrix buttons for Braille, PC for processing data and speaker for voice output.
For Voice to Braille, we intend to use character recognition technique for identifying the alphabet and Braille pattern shall be generated on the buttons. For the detection of the spoken character, we will perform the analysis in frequency domain where amplitude of the voice frequencies shall be compared with the amplitudes that are already in the database and whichever has the best matched condition is our character. For the character recognition technique, we will use Conventional Hidden Markov Model (HMM) in MATLAB. Our final project will be presented in C# or Java.
For Braille to Voice, we will check whether the pressed buttons match with the Braille characters. For this, we will compare the pressed pattern with the ones in the database and if matches, then sound will be heard notifying the matched characters.
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1. INTRODUCTION:
The purpose of our project is to develop a BRAILLE TUTOR for the blind people who do not know about the script in Braille. The computer based tutor will be able to teach the alphabets in the braille to the blind with the help of a computer and a tutor board which we intend to develop with some buttons which can be raised or pressed in different possible patterns and arrangements to resemble the alphabets in the BRAILLE. We are intending that our project should be able to receive the voice commands of different alphabets from the user and generate the corresponding Braille pattern of the raised and pressed buttons on the board of the BRAILLE TUTOR. The project is definitely be an aid to the blind people to learn Braille in an efficient and effective way. This will obviously help the blind people to carry their further studies in Braille. And moreover the project will make the blinds learn the BRAILLE without a human tutor. The tutor will also have a second phase in which the blind people can check or test themselves for the alphabets they have learnt in BRAILLE by pressing the buttons in the BRAILLE TUTOR Board in the Braille script patterns which will generate Speech of equivalent alphabet's pronunciation through speaker.
The basic idea behind creating a BRAILLE TUTOR is to use our knowledge in creating something really useful for the needy and disabled people to facilitate their lives to some extent. We really intend to learn and explore the technology, the mathematics and the electronics to create something useful for those who are disabled and are deprived from much more in the life. The project will be useful for us to learn and experience our field of electronics and will have a great real life importance in training the Blinds too.
2. LITERATURE REVIEW:
The Braille system is a method that is widely used by blind people to read and write. Braille
was devised in 1821 by Louis Braille, a Frenchman. Each Braille character or cell is made up of
six dot positions, arranged in a rectangle containing two columns of three dots each. A dot
may be raised at any of the six positions to form sixty‐four (26) permutations, including the
arrangement in which no dots are raised.
There are other Braille tutor in which each letters are written in separate cells . Blind
aid is a portable tool (tutor) used as a learning instrument that helps the user decipher
Braille without constantly going to the Braille dictionary. The simple and efficient
construction of this device may make its commercially use in the future .This device uses
computer interface which makes it possible for the computer processing of the written
statements as well to avoid the use of memory devices and microcontroller.
As that of Braille system a blind aid tool had six buttons that will rise and fall
according to the alphabet .Feeling on the raised buttons student can learn about the Braille
language .Some pattern for the Braille alphabets are as:
In which the pushed buttons are shown by dark spots. The writing mechanics is same as
that of the standard Braille system so this Braille tutor teaches the alphabets in the standard
format.
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3. METHODOLOGY:
The several task of this project will be assigned to each team member on the basis of their interest. Weekly meeting will be held to assess the status of each member and propose restructuring of plan whenever necessary. Project documentation will be performed by respective member at the end of each task. Regular discussion with project mentor will be held during project progress.
Our project implements both hardware and software portion.
3.1 Hardware Environment:
The hardware environment in our project consists of a six button Braille board, small motors, optocoupler, PC, speaker, microphone, analog to digital converter, data link between PC and peripherals.
PC: It provides the Graphical User interface. It processes the voice signals and identifies character .
Braille board: It is the six buttons board. The buttons are arranged in 3x2 matrix. This is like user’s eye. It converts Braille to Binary data (B2B) so the computer can process the data. The buttons can move up and down and the position of up and down buttons defines the character in Braille. When the user presses the buttons down the computer identifies the character and output is heard from speaker. Again, when user spells character through microphone, the computer recognizes the character and ultimately displays it in Braille board with the help of motors attached to the buttons. So, Braille board is both input and output device.
Optocoupler: In electronics, an optocoupler is a device that uses a short optical transmission path to transfer an electronic signals between elements of a circuit, typically a transmitter and a receiver, while keeping them electrically isolated. Since the electrical signal is converted to a light beam, transferred, then converted back to an electrical signal, there is no need for electrical connection between the source and destination circuits. We need optocoupler as we are interfacing motor with our pc. The parallel port may get damaged if not isolated from motor.
Parallel Port interfacing: A parallel port is a type of interface found on computers for connecting various peripherals. It is also known as a printer port or Centronics port. Due to the simplicity of its implementation, it is often used for interfacing with custom‐made peripherals. In versions of Windows that did not use the Windows NT kernel (as well as DOS and some other operating systems), programs could access the parallel port with simple outportb() and inportb() subroutine commands. We use parallel port interfacing in our project.
Microphone/Speaker: We will use high quality microphone and speaker for sound input and output.
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3.2 Software Environment:
Matlab Program: It is a commercially available mathematical software package. It is widely used in academia and industry because of its advanced capabilities and a simple user interface. Matlab also has built‐in toolboxes that contain commonly used engineering functions. So we will be using Matlab for our testing purpose.It will be our preliminary programming language.
Main Programming Language: Our main programming language will be Java or C#.
Character Recognition Model:
The first step of digital processing is to convert the time domain signal to frequency domain. The Fourier analyzer calculates the pattern of amplitude for all frequencies in the audible range and these sample patterns are compared with the samples in the database and gives best matched character.
Conventional Hidden Markov model (HMM)
Modern general‐purpose speech recognition systems are generally based on Hams. These are statistical models which output a sequence of symbols or quantities. One possible reason why Hams are used in speech recognition is that a speech signal could be viewed as a piecewise stationary signal or a short‐time stationary signal. That is, one could assume in a short‐time in the range of 10 milliseconds, speech could be approximated as a stationary process.
General Block Diagram of Proposed System
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3X2 matrix
DC motor
PC
Optocoupler
Speaker
ADC
Mic
Note:
: Path for Voice to Braille Conversion
: Path for Braille to Voice Conversion
Speech Input
Training
Recognition(x1)
No x2
Yes
Flow chart of Speech to Braille conversion
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Digitization
Spectral content extraction
Mode
Storage Unit
Is
(x1‐x2)<th
Recognized Not Recognized
Display on Braille
No Yes
Flow chart of Braille to Speech Conversion
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Braille Input
Identify the pattern
Does it match with any
character in database?
Play through speakerWrong pattern pressed
4.WORK DIVISION
Work Division
Swapnil Ranjit Vivek Raj Shrestha Sushil Adhikari Sampurna Bhattachan
C#, SQL
Database Management
Graphics User Interface
Matlab, C# Matlab,C#
Mic Interfacing
Speech Recognition Algorithm(Hidden
Markov Model)
Port Programming
Braille Board Interfacing
Matlab, C#
Braille Board Design
Braille Board Interfacing
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5. APPLICATION AND SCOPE:
The project is purposed to serve and help the blind people to learn the Nepali Braille Script without a human tutor. So the project will be very useful for the home users as well as the Schools for the Blind. We are making the project practical as much as possible so that the tutor may be used directly to teach the BRAILLE to the blinds. We do not expect our project to be used for commercial purpose but to serve the blind people as a Learning aid.
6.PROJECT SCHEDULE:
Below is our tentative project schedule:
Task name
Jul
Aug
Sept
Oct
Nov
Dec
Jan
Feb
1
Proposal writing
2
Project Research
3
Learning and coding about
Character Recognition
4
Algorithm Development
5
Identifying the component to buy
6
Motor coupling and port interfacing
7
Designing and Implementing the circuit
8
Testing and Debugging
9
System integration
10
Final Testing
11 Documentation and final report preparation
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7. BIBLIOGRAPHY:
www.wikipedia.org
www.google.com
www.uioe.sourceforge.net
John Fry, San Jose State University: Digital Signal Processing
Nepali Speech Recognition,060BCT Project , IOE