Attaining a driver’s license for most teenagers is a must, but for some groups of people such as the blind, this adolescent rite of passage never comes. However, the Robotics & Mechanisms Laboratory at Virginia Tech, or RoMeLa, is working on a way to fix this.
In 2005, the National Federation for the Blind challenged society to create a car that a blind person could drive. So far, Tech has been the only one to rise to the challenge.
Dennis Hong, mechanical engineering professor, faculty advisor, and RoMeLa director, explained why Tech chose to move forward with the project.
“(We) saw the potential for spin-off technologies,” Hong said, “(and wanted) to give hope to the blind of how technology will be able to help their everyday lives, to inspire other researchers and scientists to develop technology to help people in need.”
To Hong, the project has been a great success so far. Kimberly Wenger, senior mechanical engineering major and student team leader of the project, stated that the specific goal of the project was to create a car that a blind person could maneuver through a defined course of traffic cones. This has been accomplished and demonstrated using laser range finder technology, which uses a laser beam to judge distances.
With the laser technology, the vehicle interprets the surrounding area and then instructs drivers on how they should maneuver the car in order to avoid any obstacles. The steering wheel does so by utilizing “clicks,” which are noises emitted by the car to the driver when it senses an object. One “click” is equal to turning the wheel five degrees. So, if the driver needs to turn the wheel 10 degrees to the right, the driver will hear “two right.”
According to Wenger, in addition to direction, a blind driver also needs instruction on speed. A speed limit is set in the program and if the driver exceeds this speed, vibrations will alert the driver. Drivers wear a tactile vest that will vibrate more and more as the excess speed increases. In the event of an emergency stop, all motors in the vest will vibrate to alert the driver of the necessary immediate action.
The technology created by the team, such as the tactile vest, also has the potential to be applied in different fields. Wenger believes that such technology could be useful to airline pilots because the control panel they use is so vast and there is simply too much information to take in by sight. A tactile vest could alert pilots about certain things, such as the altitude.
Currently, the team is working on designing a system that is more informational than instructional. The present system tells a driver what to do. Wenger believes that an ideal informational system would give the driver a better idea of what is actually going on around the vehicle. One prototype the team is investigating operates like an air hockey table. Air would come up through little holes so drivers can physically feel where the obstacles are.
Wenger feels that these innovations have a lot of promise, but he is cautious in outlining the impact it will have on the future.
“I think that the technology will be able to allow for (blind drivers) long before society will be ready for it,” Wenger said. “Still, I think that it can give blind people more independence, or at least a hope for more independence.”
Gayle Yarnall, director of adaptive technology for the Perkins School for the Blind, is encouraged by the new technology, but still has her reservations. Yarnall is blind and says she’s driven in a parking lot before where she only had to worry about herself and not other drivers like on a real road — that’s the part that truly scares her.
“How many times does somebody cut you off?” Yarnall asked. “How can you react so quickly to vibrations in your steering wheel? I can’t imagine that. I can’t imagine a blind person being able to truly drive safely.”
Yarnall also fears that this technology will only be useful for younger generations. She points out that teaching an older person to drive, even if he is sighted, could be incredibly difficult. Still, Yarnall acknowledges the achievements of the innovative vehicle and believes the news has been well received by the blind community.
“I would think that any blind person that was on the Internet or had e-mail had heard about this from somebody,” Yarnall said. “The technology-savvy blind community certainly knows about it and is encouraged. This is just the tip of the iceberg.”