Collaboration between students from the Faculty of Engineering (FT) and the Faculty of Computer Science (FILKOM) Universitas Brawijaya (UB), created an innovation called Visual Mate or VISMATE. Alternative innovations for blind people in communication and mobilization.

Under the guidance of Ir Nurussa’adah MT, they are Beni Kurniawan (Electrical Engineering), M. Dwi Nur Afini (Electrical Engineering), M. Rashannaufal G (Electrical Engineering), and M Bintang Saktya (Information Systems).

VISMATE is a tool that makes it easier for blind and deaf people with disabilities in their daily activities.

“There are features to make things easier for users, namely detecting obstacles on the road to direct users to avoid accidents. “Detection of obstacles or obstructions is obtained from measurements by the ToF (Time of Flight) distance sensor,” explained Beni, one of the team members.

In this tool, he continued, there is a camera that translates photos into written form using the image recognition method. The writing will be translated by voice (text to speech), making it easier to interact between blind and deaf people.

This tool is also integrated with the Internet of Things (IoT) using an Android-based application interface. In this application, there is a tracking feature to make it easier for users and their families to monitor remotely in real-time.

Disability is when a person experiences physical, intellectual, mental and/or sensory limitations. In the long term, this can hinder interaction with the environment.

Based on data from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) in 2020, the number of people with disabilities in Indonesia reached 22.5 million people or around five percent of Indonesia’s population. One type of disability that is commonly found in society is the blind.

Common obstacles experienced by people with visual impairments are artectural obstacles caused by physical conditions in the environment that do not support access by people with disabilities, such as difficulties in accessing print media not equipped with braille or tactual (touchable) instructions.

This makes it quite difficult for blind people to obtain the information they need from print media without help from people around them. Besides obstacles in obtaining information, blind people also need tools to help them mobilize.

In terms of communicating, blind people have problems when they need to communicate with deaf and speech-impaired people.

Deaf speech and visual impairment are opposite disabilities. This is because deaf and speech-impaired people rely on their visual abilities to communicate.

Meanwhile, blind people rely on their hearing abilities, which creates quite complex problems. Finally, they need an intermediary or the help of a third person to communicate.

Technology plays a role in increasing the independence of blind people with assistance using computer vision methods.

VISMATE also helps deaf people to communicate with other people and the public by using smartphone applications that are integrated with the Internet of Things (IoT).

“This makes VISMATE a friend of the disabled with many features from various sensors,” concluded Beni.  (mic)