The newly improved Robotic Cane or also called the White Cane equipped with a color 3D camera, an inertial measurement sensor, and on-board computer, can offer blind and visually impaired users a new way to navigate indoors.
When paired with a building’s architectural drawing, the device can accurately guide a user to a desired location with sensory and auditory cues, while at the same time help the user avoid obstacles.
NIH’s National Eye Institute (NEI) http://www.nibib.nih.gov and the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) https://www.nibib.nih.gov co-funded the device. Details of the updated design was published in the IEEE/CAA Journal of Automatica Sinica.
“Many people in the visually impaired community consider the White Cane to be their best and most functional navigational tool, despite it being century old technology,” said Cang Ye, PhD, Lead Author of the Study and Professor of Computer Science at the College of Engineering at Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond.
There are cell phone-based applications that can provide navigation assistance such as helping blind users stay within crosswalks, but helping blind users navigate large spaces inside buildings is a major challenge especially when the spaces are unfamiliar.
Earlier versions of the robotic cane incorporated building floorplans. The user could tell the cane when they wished to go, and the cane by a combination of auditory cues and a robotic rolling tip could guide the user to their destination. However, when used over long distances, the inaccuracies in the user’s location could build up, and eventually the user was directed to an incorrect location.
To improve the guidance, Dr. Ye and colleagues added a color depth camera to the system. Using infrared light, the system can determine the distance between the cane and other physical objects, including the floor doorways and walls, as well as furniture and other obstacles.