Project proposal for Texas Instruments Innovation Challenge India Design Contest 2015

Project Domain-Medical/Assistive Technologies

Morse Chat-A Wearable Communication Device for Deafblinds
Delhi Technological University
Name
JATIN BATRA
ANURAG
GUPTA
AAROHI
AGRAWAL
AKSHAT
MATHUR

College ID/Roll
No.
2K12/EE/064
2K12/EE/027

UG/PG

Course/Branch

Semester

UG
UG

B.Tech/EE
B.Tech/EE

5th
5th

2K12/EC/003

UG

B.Tech/ECE

5th

2K12/EE/014

UG

B.Tech/EE

5th

Mentored by
Pragati Kumar
Professor
Department of Electrical Engineering
Delhi Technological University
(Formerly Delhi College of Engineering)
Shahbad Daulatpur, Main Bawana Road, Delhi-42, India

Abstract
KeywordsMorse Code;deafblinds; Wearable Assitive Technology;Wireless

In this proposal we have introduced a wearable communication device for the deafblinds. It
utilizes the International System of Morse Codse as a communication protocol. This device
called Morse Chat allows the less gifted ones to chat with each other by means of vibrotactile
morse code. The user can talk to other person by using push-buttons (dash/dots) , these are
processed by MSP430 and are transmitted wirelessly by TIs CC110L Wireless Booster pack to
the other user. The other user perceives the vibrotactile Morse Code corresponding to each
character/alphabet received from the first user.Thus this creates a means of communication for
blindeafs which is easy to learn and reliable.

Market Analysis
There are 5 lakhs children and adults in India who are deafblind. Its a widely known fact that
95% of what we learn comes from seeing and hearing, imagine the life of these people who are
cannot see and hear. Due to multiple sensory loss , the life of these people have gone from bad to
worst making them enable to lead lives in any better way possible.
There is a lack of awareness about the category of people who are deafblind not just among
masses but in government too. Because of this, the lives of these people have become miserable
and often they are discriminated and neglected by the world.
In a country like India where there are 500000 deafblinds, not much attempts have been made to
bring about any change. According to sense India foundation, in 1997, there was only one school
where there were 48 deafblinds. In past 15 years although the situation has been improved
through various Non-governmental organizations, only 10% of the people have been benefitted
so far.

Despite being all technological advances, the method of communication used by deafblinds
primarily remains to be non-verbal communication such as body movements, change in
breathing patterns etc. , alphabet based communication (sign language) and communication aids
such as Braille.

Sign language and body movements are most often used as primitive means of communication.
Despite being easy to access, sign language and/or gesture talking is only good for indicating
something and there might be cases when it becomes completely impossible to decipher the sign
language subject to different people under different circumstances. Same goes for Alphabet
based communication which is straightforward to learn but very difficult to receive and decipher
and thus it fails at most of time.
On a technological note, Braille and moon are also sometimes used for visually improved
deafblinds. Braille is a system of writing in which arrangements of raised dots representing
letters and numbers are identified by touch. However, this method calls for the literacy in written
language and may not be used by everyone since it requires teaching written language in first
place.
There is no dearth of assistive communication devices available in market but the problem lies in
the portability and absurdly high prices of these devices. Devices such as Blind Communicator,
Braille Sense Communicator and other numerous devices based on Braille utilize Braille as its

protocol for communication and as mentioned above, Braille devices may not be used by
everyone since it requires some sort of language proficiency. Moreover to add to above
points, these devices cost as high as $6000 which is unreasonably a highway robbery.
Perturbed by the varying complexity, non-portability, non-reliability, pre-required proficiency
and sky-high prices, we are proud to present Morse Chat, a wearable communication device for
blindeafs using the International System of Morse Code. Morse code is easy to learn and use and
despite being several years after its introduction, it is widely used.
Our biggest motivation in this project is our BELEIVE in every deafblind who DREAMS crazy
enough to change the world because those who are crazy enough to change the world are
probably the ones who change it. We believe and hope that this method of communication will
open a whole new world of opportunities for deafblinds and we hope that with enough
persistence and patience every deafblind will able to learn , read and express his thoughts and
feelings explicitly via International Morse Code.
The following mind boggling thoughts is our ultimate motivation of the project:
What if the cure of cancer is in the mind of child who is deafblind?
What if the worlds greatest peacemaker is deafblind?
What if the biggest innovation in science and technology comes from a deafblind?
And it goes on, what really bugs us is that deafblinds are unable to find and live their
dream because of the visual and hearing impairments.
Nothing makes us happier if we could develop a medium of communication for
deafblinds which they could use for learning and better communicating.
Despite being of all such adversities, there are many achievers in India who have done so much
despite remaining deafblind whole of their life. To quote some of them:

Dr. Rajendra Singh Sethi

{First deafblind
person to acquire a doctorate degree.
Now a
Board Member of National Trust and
Governing Council member of Sense
International (India)}.

Anindyo Bhattacharji

Deafblind man lives in

New York and works in Helen Keller
National Centre
a deafblind man in Limbdi,
Gujarat who owns and manages a

Rajesh Mehta

Zamir Dhale

sweetmeat
shop
Young deafblind man brought
up in Mumbai and works as Advocacy
Officer
in Sense International (India)

All these statistics and data indicate only one thing and that is with the right platform and
resource, a deafblind person is no less than the normal person, nay better than normal person.
We hope this method of communication will bring a change and will serve as a useful resource
for those who need it badly.

Project Description
We aim to design an inexpensive wearable assistive device for communication of blindeafs based
on the International Morse Code. With the primitive method of communication such as sign
language/body movements, alphabet manual and braille software, it is cumbersome to
communicate with these methods mainly because of the reasons they are not efficient enough
and using advanced technophobic methods like moon and braille requires writing proficiency
which debars most of the blindeafs from the basic human rights to live, learn and grow.
On the other hand, our method make it easy to communicate by adopting the International
System of Morse Code which is not only easy to learn and but also very efficient to understand.

Proposed Solution
Circuit Diagram:

As we can see the circuit , Simulations are not viable in this case since, the components used are not
supported by any simulation and design tools, Furthermore, the project is an application based not a
research one and hence, there is no need for simulating the hardware setup

System Overview:

Block Diagram

Block Diagram Decoded

Buttons for Dits and Dahs (Input to MSP430)

International system of Morse Code uses Dash and Dots (Dits and Dahs ) to represent the
messages and in our device we provide the provision for the same using the push buttons. Any
character or word can be easily inputted by following the common standard

Image Source - http://www.daenotes.com/images/morse-code-table.jpg

MSP430G2553
The core of the Morse Chat device is MSP430g2553 which handles all things from processing
data to sending data and to drive the motors. The 24 GPIOs, 16 Kb flash memory, 2 internal
timers with PDIP configuration are more than sufficient to implement the prototype of our
device.
CC110L RF Module Booster pack
The wireless module enables to transfer and receives the data wirelessly from one MSP430 to
another MSP430. The received text is first stored in a buffer and then the corresponding text is
converted into vibrotactile Morse code providing sufficient delay between each dash/Dot to
distinguish between each character. The low power CC10L RF Module having its capability to
transfer packets of about 64 bytes of size and compatibility with most of the family members of
MSP430 acts as mediator in our project.
DRV2603
The typical vibrator motor requires a current greater or equal than 100mA. To put off the load
from the MSP430 micro-controller, we are using DRV2603 motor driver chip from TI. The chip
is apt for driving linear resonant actuators and vibration motors. With couple of external passive
components like decoupling capacitors and fly-back diode, we are all set to vibrate our motors.

Project Execution Plan

o How do you intend to take it from proposal to prototype
We are a group of highly motivated students who consider learning as their ultimate
life goal. We do understand the intricacies of the project and we believe that it is a
good idea to have a plan for the execution beforehand starting the project.
Since the project calls for various skills such as working with Analog ICs, TI Microcontrollers, communication system and electrical motor drives, we have decided to
divide the work among four of us based on our areas of interest. Unlike with most of
the cases, where areas of interest might arise a conflict, ours have a mutual
relationship and therefore we have agreed to divide the work as follows:

Jatin Batra- Analog , Communication and circuit designing

Anurag Gupta- Electrical Motor Drives and Micro-controllers
Aarohi Agrawal and Akshat Mathur Programming, Hardware interfacing,
testing and debugging.

We are aware of our present skills and knowledge and therefore there are certain
project specific skills that we need to develop. We have started working on them in
advanced and by the time results for the first rounds will be out , we would be adept
at one or two of the essential skills.
From the implementation point of view, it is important to make sure that prototype is
as real as the product and theoretically there shouldnt be much difference between
two. As we pointed out earlier, Morse Chat will be much cheaper than the other
devices available in market and we make sure to enhance its credibility by making it
more user friendly and less tech-savvy. Ensuring low-power consumption is also a
challenge too.
o Things to consider in taking it to prototype to product
The device we are planning to make would be a wearable device that would be put in
the pouch of the armband. After the prototyping and testing is done, this project can
be manufactured at a large scale. This can be bought by the less gifted ones
themselves or by their loved ones for them.
Since the device would require the knowledge of universal Morse code, in addition to
the device tutorial programs could also be offered in this regard. This would once
again increase the involvement of the less gifted ones in the society and reduce the
social gap that exists between them and the normal people. This would be a very
big achievement and well believe that the purpose of making this hardware is
successful.
Also since the device is wearable, it can be launched in a variety of colors/designs
that would make it fashionable instead of a helping aid.

TI Content
List all the TI Parts to be used in the various subsystems of the proposed solution
TI Part

Usage/Advantage

(link all the parts to their respective

product page on the TI website)
DRV2603
(http://www.ti.com/product/drv2603)
LM7805C

To drive the vibrator motor corresponding to Morse

Code
To step down the voltage to 5V for various components

(http://www.ti.com/product/lm7805c
)
LM3940

To step down to fixed 3.3V from 5V

(http://www.ti.com/product/lm3940 )
Part 4
Part 5

Bill of Materials
Part

Function

Estimated Quantity

Estimated cost

CC110L RF Module Booster

pack
(https://estore.ti.com/430BOOSTCC110L-CC110L-RF-ModuleBoosterPack-P2734.aspx)

To wirelessly transmits 1
and receive the Morse
Code

19$

Vibration Motors

Vibration Motor to
perceive the received
Morse Code

20$

MSP430G2553

The central processing 2

unit of Morse Chat

https://estore.ti.com/MSPEXP430G2-MSP430-LaunchPadValue-Line-Development-kitP2031.aspx?ItemId=8120887

19.8$

Conclusion
So we conclude by proposing an innovative yet inexpensive solution to address the
communication problem of blindeafs following the International System of Morse Code. To
make it portable, we have decided to make a wearable arm pouch band for the device. Though
for the R&D purposes the research cost may come up more than the actual cost of device being
proposed but it should be worth it because it will give open up a whole lot new world of
opportunities for the less fortunate ones. Once done with the prototype suggested, there are many
more areas to explore and make things even more convenient and user friendly such as
combining Android and Zigbee protocol for communication between a normal person and a
blindeaf. Though it is hard to predict the impact of a new product especially when its is in
research phase but we are sure that this would device would be able to compete with the
conventional devices and thus open up a whole lot possibilities for the blindeaf people whose
numbers are as high as 500000 lakhs in India. Such a low cost device further ensures that the
device reaches to all those who need it and not only the elite ones.

List of References
1. A Portable Communication Aid for Deaf-Blind People , Mu-Chun Su*,Chia-Yi Chen,Shi-Yong
Su,Chien-Hsing Chou, Hsiang-Feng Hsiu and Yu Chine Wang
2. http://zunkworks.com/BluetoothMorseKeyboard
3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0og_ZvkAL6A

List of supporting documents

1. Annual Report 2012-13 , Sense India Organization
2. Various resource from http://www.senseintindia.org/resources/publications
3. http://www.wati.org/content/supports/free/pdf/Ch13-Hearing.pdf