{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,19]],"date-time":"2026-05-19T15:03:05Z","timestamp":1779202985793,"version":"3.51.4"},"reference-count":44,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"14","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2022,7,12]],"date-time":"2022-07-12T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1657584000000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"Open Access Program from the American University of Sharjah","award":["OAPCEN-1410-E00071"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["OAPCEN-1410-E00071"]}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Sensors"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Visually impaired people face many challenges that limit their ability to perform daily tasks and interact with the surrounding world. Navigating around places is one of the biggest challenges that face visually impaired people, especially those with complete loss of vision. As the Internet of Things (IoT) concept starts to play a major role in smart cities applications, visually impaired people can be one of the benefitted clients. In this paper, we propose a smart IoT-based mobile sensors unit that can be attached to an off-the-shelf cane, hereafter a smart cane, to facilitate independent movement for visually impaired people. The proposed mobile sensors unit consists of a six-axis accelerometer\/gyro, ultrasonic sensors, GPS sensor, cameras, a digital motion processor and a single credit-card-sized single-board microcomputer. The unit is used to collect information about the cane user and the surrounding obstacles while on the move. An embedded machine learning algorithm is developed and stored in the microcomputer memory to identify the detected obstacles and alarm the user about their nature. In addition, in case of emergencies such as a cane fall, the unit alerts the cane user and their guardian. Moreover, a mobile application is developed to be used by the guardian to track the cane user via Google Maps using a mobile handset to ensure safety. To validate the system, a prototype was developed and tested.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/s22145202","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2022,7,12]],"date-time":"2022-07-12T23:02:01Z","timestamp":1657666921000},"page":"5202","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":35,"title":["An IoT Machine Learning-Based Mobile Sensors Unit for Visually Impaired People"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"22","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-8143-6417","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Salam","family":"Dhou","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Computer Science and Engineering, American University of Sharjah, Sharjah P.O. Box 26666, United Arab Emirates"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-8166-0814","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Ahmad","family":"Alnabulsi","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Computer Science and Engineering, American University of Sharjah, Sharjah P.O. Box 26666, United Arab Emirates"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-6902-5092","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"A. R.","family":"Al-Ali","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Computer Science and Engineering, American University of Sharjah, Sharjah P.O. Box 26666, United Arab Emirates"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Mariam","family":"Arshi","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Computer Science and Engineering, American University of Sharjah, Sharjah P.O. Box 26666, United Arab Emirates"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Fatima","family":"Darwish","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Computer Science and Engineering, American University of Sharjah, Sharjah P.O. Box 26666, United Arab Emirates"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Sara","family":"Almaazmi","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Computer Science and Engineering, American University of Sharjah, Sharjah P.O. Box 26666, United Arab Emirates"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Reem","family":"Alameeri","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Computer Science and Engineering, American University of Sharjah, Sharjah P.O. Box 26666, United Arab Emirates"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2022,7,12]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","unstructured":"(2022, May 07). World Report on Vision. World Health Organization. Available online: https:\/\/www.who.int\/publications\/i\/item\/9789241516570."},{"key":"ref_2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"e130","DOI":"10.1016\/S2214-109X(20)30425-3","article-title":"Trends in prevalence of blindness and distance and near vision impairment over 30 years: An analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study","volume":"9","author":"Bourne","year":"2021","journal-title":"Lancet Glob. 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