Imagine a visually-impaired navigating through a crowded sidewalk or
finding his way through traffic, without the aid of a walking stick or
another person. In the near future, a blind person would be able to do
so — by wearing a glove.
In a revolutionary technology, a city-based young student has come out with a device that can help the blind 'run through obstacles, or win a hurdle race' - in Abhinav Verma's own words.
The device, called Live Braille, will help the wearer "feel the world around". Five ultrasonic sensors are fitted on the edges of each finger, with minute vibrators to indicate the objects at varying distances - 3 metres, 2 m and 1 m. The complete unit is self-charging, i.e, powered by the walking of the person using the "piezoelectric shoe" that will take care of 20% of Live Braille power usage while the person walks. The piezoelectric design —also Abhinav's brainchild — is currently patent pending. The unit is also self-calibrating, which means in a crowded space, it will automatically detect hurdles at smaller distances - to the tune of 10 cm, 50 cm and 100 cm.
The Live Braille idea emerged when Abhinav, a second year mechanical engineering student of Chitkara University, was to submit his entry in the I-MechE APi design contest. The contest invited entries from young engineers to design a product to assist the visually impaired. Live Braille represented India in Hong Kong and bagged the second position in Asia Pacific.
"There is no development in this field. The technology to assist the blind just keeps getting modified in the same direction. It is like modifying a bicycle over and over again, rather than switching over to a motorcycle," says Abhinav, who developed the Live Braille prototype. On the technical side, he was helped by Anchal Gupta and Kartar Kaur— both second-year students of electrical engineering.
"It is not just a real world version of Braille, we are developing a prototype to incorporate features like social networking, voice recognition, human recognition through voice command and sound feedback for crowded areas,"
Abhinav said. Working as a social networking tool, the Live Braille unit will identify another person wearing the same. The final product will have a Google-maps supported voice command giving out directions and recognition for 'friends'. Besides, a sensor at the base of the unit can also detect lower and higher altitudes. "It will tell the wearer if there's a pit ahead or a flight of stairs going upstairs or downstairs," Abhinav said, elaborating on the features of his prototype.
Abhinav says the product is patent pending and in talks with manufacturers to produce it commercially. The final unit will be available with the piezoelectric shoe and at a cheaper cost, without the shoe, but with a separate charging unit. The vibrators used are the same as those in mobile phones and can be easily repaired/replaced in any mobile store.
The Live Braille model has earned recommendation from Kamlesh Kulla, NASA chief scientist for earth observation in the human exploration science office of space.
Source : TOI , 28th October 2013
In a revolutionary technology, a city-based young student has come out with a device that can help the blind 'run through obstacles, or win a hurdle race' - in Abhinav Verma's own words.
The device, called Live Braille, will help the wearer "feel the world around". Five ultrasonic sensors are fitted on the edges of each finger, with minute vibrators to indicate the objects at varying distances - 3 metres, 2 m and 1 m. The complete unit is self-charging, i.e, powered by the walking of the person using the "piezoelectric shoe" that will take care of 20% of Live Braille power usage while the person walks. The piezoelectric design —also Abhinav's brainchild — is currently patent pending. The unit is also self-calibrating, which means in a crowded space, it will automatically detect hurdles at smaller distances - to the tune of 10 cm, 50 cm and 100 cm.
The Live Braille idea emerged when Abhinav, a second year mechanical engineering student of Chitkara University, was to submit his entry in the I-MechE APi design contest. The contest invited entries from young engineers to design a product to assist the visually impaired. Live Braille represented India in Hong Kong and bagged the second position in Asia Pacific.
"There is no development in this field. The technology to assist the blind just keeps getting modified in the same direction. It is like modifying a bicycle over and over again, rather than switching over to a motorcycle," says Abhinav, who developed the Live Braille prototype. On the technical side, he was helped by Anchal Gupta and Kartar Kaur— both second-year students of electrical engineering.
"It is not just a real world version of Braille, we are developing a prototype to incorporate features like social networking, voice recognition, human recognition through voice command and sound feedback for crowded areas,"
Abhinav said. Working as a social networking tool, the Live Braille unit will identify another person wearing the same. The final product will have a Google-maps supported voice command giving out directions and recognition for 'friends'. Besides, a sensor at the base of the unit can also detect lower and higher altitudes. "It will tell the wearer if there's a pit ahead or a flight of stairs going upstairs or downstairs," Abhinav said, elaborating on the features of his prototype.
Abhinav says the product is patent pending and in talks with manufacturers to produce it commercially. The final unit will be available with the piezoelectric shoe and at a cheaper cost, without the shoe, but with a separate charging unit. The vibrators used are the same as those in mobile phones and can be easily repaired/replaced in any mobile store.
The Live Braille model has earned recommendation from Kamlesh Kulla, NASA chief scientist for earth observation in the human exploration science office of space.
Source : TOI , 28th October 2013
No comments:
Post a Comment