Thanks to a new breakthrough from a team working out of Technical University of Munich, the blind might now see, at least in infrared.
New Device Lets People Who Are Blind “See” in Infrared
From futurism.com
2022-01-23 17:51:01
Abby Lee Hood
Excerpt:
Watch out, Matt Murdock — there may be a new Daredevil in Hell’s Kitchen soon enough! While Murdock’s superhero character relies on super hearing, taste and electrical impulses to see because he is blind, IRL folks with low vision may soon have access to a new pair of goggles that uses infrared technology to assist in navigating the world around them.
Manuel Zahn and Armaghan Ahmad Khan at the Technical University of Munich in Germany published yet-to-be peer-reviewed new research on their 3D camera and haptic feedback armband.
“Even in the present era, visually impaired people face a constant challenge of navigation,” the pair wrote in their study. “The most common tool available to them is the cane. Although the cane allows good detection of objects in the user’s immediate vicinity, it lacks the ability to detect obstacles further away.”
Zahn’s design uses a pair of infrared cameras inserted in 3D-printed prototype goggles to capture a stereoscopic image that a small computer uses to create a map of the surrounding area. Because it uses infrared, the goggles work even in the dark. The setup’s armband uses 25 actuators in a grid that vibrate to help users understand how close objects are, as well as how they’re oriented. If a user walks towards an obstacle, the vibration intensity of the respective actuators gradually increases.
About Author
