Sunyani Technical Varsity Invents Blind Walking Stick

A walking stick that can direct the blind automatically to walk by means of ultra-sound has been developed by the Electrical/Electronic Engineering Department of the Sunyani Technical University (STU).

The ultra-sound walking stick just like the white cane is expected to ease the burden of the blind in their daily movement without the aid of a helper. The walking stick uses solar or battery and has a sensor that senses motions and objects around within a certain radius of the holder.

Other components of the walking stick are a resistor, transistor and an alarm section that has pacific infra-red sensor that senses motions and objects by blowing the alarm when the stick is pointed towards an object within a certain radius reminding the holder or the blind person there is an object on his or her way.

The prototype walking stick can also be used by the deaf and dumb or the hearing impaired since there is an inbuilt mechanism that vibrates the stick to tell the deaf and dumb that there is a danger ahead.

Explaining the mechanism that it uses, a lecturer at the department, Mathew Tawiah, who together with a student, Cornelius Diibozing, developed the prototype walking stick, explained that the walking stick is also able to deter a valley (gutter) or stagnant water by giving different sound either by beeping twice or more to  alert the holder of an imminent water area.

He stated that when it was developed first, it used a battery pack which the holder holds differently from the walking stick but later realised it was burdensome for the blind so has to build in a solar mechanism to power it to make the holder free to move.

Mr Tawiah disclosed that the product is still at its prototype stage so needs investors to help the department make mass production for the market to ease the burden on the blind in society.

This came to light on Wednesday when the Electrical/Electronic Department of STU organised an exhibition to showcase electronic gadgets they have been able to invent as part of their contribution to solve societal problems.

Apart from the innovative walking stick, the department has also invented a density-based traffic control system. Explaining, two of the students who developed the system as part of their project work mentioned that the idea is to control traffic-based on a number of vehicles (density) on a particular lane at a traffic intersection.

They revealed that unlike the current traffic control system which gives equal amount of time to all lanes at a traffic intersection to move according to which light, the innovation on the density-based type is to automatically determine which lane has more cars on it and allocate more time to it than the one which has only one or two vehicles on it.

Other inventions on display include a cassava-peeling machine, an e-voting software system and a wireless power transfer (transformer) which is meant to distribute power to electronic gadgets without the use of cables once the gadgets are within a certain radius.

The Head of Electrical/Electronic Engineering Department, James Adu-Ansre, opening the exhibition, underscored that Ghana has a bright future to transform its economy through electronic technology. He pleaded with investors and businesses to come and negotiate with the technical university to launch its products for the market and make life easy for the people.

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FROM Daniel Y Dayee, Sunyani