Indoor Wall Avoidance

Project description
Our team was on a quest to assist Osnat, a charming blind person, who also suffer from partial paralysis on her left side, limiting her indoor mobility when her right hand is busy. Our goal was to accommodate her request to walk at home with a coffee in her hand without bouncing the walls. We interviewed her before the event, and even sent several team members to visit her at home to see her at her own habitat. Our solution was a head mounted contraption that includes ultrasonic proximity sensors and a haptic indication by means of vibrations motors.

We chose a hat as the carrier for the solution as it is easy for her to wear and remove (she is assisted when dressing, so anything wearable on the body was unacceptable). Also, the head movement can be used by the person wearing the hat to scan the area and identify “clear path” to walk to.

For our first prototype we used a headband with an Arduino pro mini, SRF05 ultrasonic range finder and some cell phone motor vibrators. The circuit was assembled on a mini breadboard with jumpers and was powered by LiPo batteries we scavenged from an unused quad-copter. Everything was sewn together to the headband with some nice foam covering the sensors from the forehead. By the end of the first night we had it assembled and working.

We tried it on ourselves late at night and were pleased with the results – you could actually sense a “virtual wall” ahead of you! Here’s a short 7 seconds YouTube video of Liat bravely trying it for the first time. Mind you, the motor vibration at this try were on full power, giving her quite a jolt when the sensors crossed the proximity threshold (one meter, a little more than an arm length) we later fixed the software to gradually increase vibration power when the distance decreases.

In the middle of the second day we got to meet a blind person, who is both blind and deaf, brave enough to agree to test our prototype without his escort. Few moments after he wore the headband on his head he gave a great smile and signaled he can sense the surrounding walls. He moved around pretty quickly and when challenged to get out of the room he located the open door easily and crossed it with great confidence. Here’s a short 21 seconds YouTube video.

Videos




The Team
The team consists of:
 * Liat (Intel engineer)
 * Liraz (Intel engineer)
 * Yoni (Intel engineer)
 * Shai (Intel engineer)
 * Tomer (Intel engineer)
 * Oded Shorer (industrial designer)
 * Erez Livne
 * Ron Meir
 * Osnat Amara.