For The Visually Impaired: Obstacle-Warning Cane

Scientist have developed a new smart cane that could help transform the lives of the blind and visually impaired by allowing them to sense the environment beyond the physical length of their walking stick. Researchers from The University of Manchester in the UK upgraded the cane – which has been used as mobility told for centuries – by adding a low-cost embedded computer. The tool, dubbed mySmartCane works much like a common car parking sensor. The ultrasonic ball wirelessly measure the distance to approaching objects and converts this data into an audio signal. The visually impaired user can gauge the object distance from the frequency of the sound, before the cane physically bumps against it. The user can hear the sounds using headphones. The key takeaway was that mySmartCane had to be as simple and low-cost, so researcher used 3D printing and cheap sensor to create an ultrasonic sensory ball, which attaches to most existing white-canes.