Seminar Material anyone?
From: Trapp, Greg, CFB
Sent: Monday, October 18, 2021 2:21 PM
To: President, National Federation of the Blind
<OfficeOfThePresident at nfb.org>; Pamela Allen <pallen at louisianacenter.org>;
Edward Bell (ebell at pdrib.com) <ebell at pdrib.com>;
'nfbnewmexicopresident at gmail.com' <nfbnewmexicopresident at gmail.com>
Subject: New cane with camera, sensors may help visually impaired. UPI News
2021 10 13
You have all likely already seen this article, but in case you have not I am
passing it on. As I like to say when I see these kind of stories, it "brings
tears to my eyes." It will definitely make a good seminar topic.
New cane with camera, sensors may help visually impaired. Oct. 13 (UPI) --.
Researchers at Stanford University have given the traditional white cane
used by the visually impaired a technological upgrade to help them better
avoid potential obstacles, they said Wednesday. Called the Augmented Cane,
the new tool is equipped with multiple sensors and intuitive feedback
mechanisms to guide users around indoor and outdoor obstacles and enable
them to walk faster, the researchers said in an article published by Science
Robotics. The new cane also includes technology to help guide users to
specific locations preprogrammed into its on-board system. With additional
refinements, the new cane could assist the more than 250 million people
around the world who have difficulties moving outside their homes due to
visual impairment, according to the researchers. The increased mobility
potentially would improve the physical and mental health, as well as their
economic and social well-being of those living with visual impairment, the
researchers said. Robotic devices like this one actually can help improve
both navigation and mobility if they are designed in a way that people find
intuitive and confidence-building, researcher Patrick Slade told UPI in an
email. We've built a device to help navigate in many situations, [and] a
general solution like this could be beneficial, once improved as a product
to make it lighter and simpler, said Slade, a post-doctoral in
bioengineering at Stanford University in California. The visually impaired
face a number of mobility challenges, including reduced walking speed and
increased risk for accidental injury, studies have found. Traditional white
canes with a red bottom section and guide dogs are commonly used tools that
help people with impaired vision remain mobile and independent, but neither
are perfect solutions, according to Slade and his colleagues. Older canes
can help users avoid obstacles, but can only detect those within its length,
and the availability of guide dogs is limited due in large part to training
costs that exceed $40,000, research shows. Built with open-source
technology, the current version of the Augmented Cane features a camera and
GPS antenna, as well as a motorized wheel at its tip to help steer the user
in real time, the researchers said. In its present form, the cane, which
weighs about 2 pounds, costs about $400 to manufacture, but Slade and his
colleagues hope to further refine the design to make it more user-friendly.
They hope to partner with manufacturers to streamline the cane's development
and, ideally, enable it to link with a user's smartphone to expand its
ability to respond to needs in real time, Slade said. A similar device is in
development at Virginia Commonwealth University. For this study, Slade and
his colleagues assessed the walking speeds of users of the Augmented Cane.
Walking speed was used as the key measure because it is reflective of a
person's mobility as well as their ability to efficiently avoid potential
obstacles, the researchers said. Study participants included 12 sighted
adults who were blindfolded to simulate visual impairment and 12 adults with
diagnosed visual impairment with experience using a white cane. Compared to
a traditional white cane, the Augmented Cane increased the walking speed of
people with visual impairments by an average of 18%, the data showed. Users
of the Augmented Cane also had fewer collisions with obstacles in their
environment and reported higher confidence in their navigation abilities,
the researchers said. Although our device is relatively low cost relative to
other research devices, it definitely has room for improvement to become a
product, Slade said. We've open-sourced the design to help researchers and
people interested in this problem to benefit from the design [and] we are
thinking about streamlining future designs and would love to work with
corporate partners to make a really useful product, he said. .
Greg Trapp, JD
Executive Director
New Mexico Commission for the Blind
2200 Yale Blvd SE
Albuquerque, NM 87106
505-383-2231
www.cfb.state.nm.us
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