At a mere age of 16, T Ravi Kiran, a young genius from Sonala village in Adilabad district, has invented a device called 'Blind Eye', which acts as an artificial eye for the visually-impaired. Ravi's innovation, on which he has been working for the last three years and one that also won him accolades across the country, is capable of three things - read, recognise and navigate.
The device, which can be strapped onto the person's head, has six Ultrasonic sensors fixed on all three sides of the device, and a camera in the front. Through artificial intelligence, Ravi's device with the help of the camera, can read out text that is in front of it, give out aural cues about the physical surroundings to the user and even spell out the names of family and friends whose pictures and names have already been fed into the device's database. Ravi who has always been keen on learning electronics got a new direction for his passion when Atal Tinkering Labs' (ATL) under the Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) was first set up in his school a few years ago.
"From my class at the lab, I learned about the different kinds of sensors, which fascinated me and got me thinking of ways to use them for making devices that might help especially people with visual impairment," said Ravi. Talking about the efficiency of the device he explained that the Raspberry pi camera installed in the device can capture big and small text and read it for the user. The cameras can also help the user recognise people by using a face recognition tool. Additionally, the divide can also help them navigate with the help of sensors.
The divide is made of 3-D print plastic. Currently, Ravi is working on modifying his device to make it lightweight and more affordable. Due to the ongoing pandemic, Ravi has been missing his full-time school and working in the lab, but he knew that being cooped up didn't mean he couldn't put his mind to work. Ravi, now with the support of his family, is working at India's Largest Prototyping centre in Hyderabad, T-Works for developing his second innovation device related to COVID-19. "My parents are not that educated and they do not know much about electronics, but they have always supported me in my work," he added.
