Blind Can Take Wheel With Vehicle Designed by University Engineering Design

team Blacksburg, Va. – – A student team in the Virginia Tech College of Engineering is providing the blind with an opportunity many never thought possible: The opportunity to drive.

A retrofitted four-wheel dirt buggy developed by the Blind Driver Challenge
team (http://www.me.vt.edu/blinddriver/)
from Virginia Tech’s Robotics and Mechanisms Laboratory uses laser range finders, an instant voice command
interface and a host of other innovative, cutting-edge technology to guide
blind drivers as they steer, brake, and accelerate. Although in the early
testing stage, the National Federation of the Blind — which spurred the
project — considers the vehicle a major breakthrough for independent living
of the visually impaired.

“It was great!” said Wes Majerus, of Baltimore, the first blind person to
drive the buggy on a closed course at the Virginia Tech campus this summer.
Majerus is an access technology specialist with the National Federation of
the Blind’s Jernigan Institute in Baltimore, a research and training
institute dedicated to developing technologies and services to help the
blind achieve independence.

Majerus called his drive a liberating experience, adding that he drove
before on Nebraska farm roads with his father as a guide in the passenger
seat.

Sitting inside the vehicle, a blind driver can turn the steering wheel, stop
and accelerate by following data from a computing unit that uses sensory
information from the laser range finder serving as the ‘eyes’ of the driver,
in addition to a combination of voice commands and a vibrating vest as
guides. A member of the Virginia Tech student team sat next to Majerus in
the passenger seat to monitor the system’s software operations.

“It’s a great first step,” Majerus added. “As far as the differences between
human instructions and those given by the voice in the Blind Driver
Challenge car, the car’s instructions are very precise. You use the
technology to act on the environment — the driving course — in a very
orderly manner. In some cases, the human passenger will be vague, “turn
left” — does that mean just a small turn to the left, or are we going for
large amounts of turn?”

Also driving the vehicle was Mark Riccobono, also of Baltimore, the
executive director of the Jernigan Institute, who also is blind. He called
his test drive historic. “This is sort of our going to the moon project,” he
said

In 2004 Jernigan Institute challenged university research teams to develop a
vehicle that would one day allow the blind to drive. Virginia Tech was the
only university in the nation to accept the nonprofit’s call two years
later, said Dennis Hong, director of the Robotics and Mechanisms Laboratory,
part of the Virginia Tech mechanical engineering department. The National
Federation of the Blind provided a $3,000 grant to launch the project.

“I thought it would be a very rewarding project, helping the blind,” said
Hong, the current faculty adviser on the project. “We are not only excited
about the vehicle itself, but more than that, we are excited about the
potential of the many spin-off technologies from this project that can be
used for helping the blind in so many ways.”

The team will bring the Blind Driver Challenge vehicle to the National
Federation of the Blind’s Youth Slam summer camp event held July 26 through
Aug. 1 in College Park, Md. There, the team hopes to have teenagers who
would be obtaining their driver’s licenses, but cannot because of their
blindness, drive the buggy.

Youth participants also are expected to remote control drive miniature cars.
Additionally, the car is expected to ride in a National Federation of the
Blind-sponsored parade in Washington D.C.

“I most look forward to learning as much as I can from these bright young
students,” said Greg Jannaman, who led the Virginia Tech student team in his
senior year and graduated in May with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical
engineering. “Blind students from across the nation apply to be selected to
attend this summer camp. While we are there to provide an educational
experience for them, I can only imagine the invaluable feedback and fresh
new ideas that they will provide in return.”

Jannaman is excited about the vehicle’s success. “There wasn’t a moment’s
hesitation with any of our blind drivers, whereas blind-folded sighted
drivers weren’t as quick to let go of their preconceptions,” said Jannaman
of Hendersonville, Tenn. “The blind drivers actually performed better than
their sighted counterparts. An overwhelming sense of accomplishment overcame
me as I simply rode along while Wes and Mark successfully navigated the
driving course without my assistance.”

Early models of the Blind Driver Challenge vehicle relied more on
technologies for fully autonomous vehicles, previously developed by Virginia
Tech mechanical engineering students as part of the DARPA Urban Challenge
(www.vt.edu/spotlight/achievement/2007-10-29_victortango/2007-10-29-victorta ngo.html).
The student team redesigned the vehicle so that the blind
motorist has complete control of the driving process, as any sighted driver
would.

This change in approach led to new challenges, including how to effectively
convey the high bandwidth of information from the laser sensors scanning the
vehicle’s surrounding environment to the driver fast enough and accurate
enough to allow safe driving. As a result, the team developed non-visual
interface technologies, including a vibrating vest for feedback on speed, a
click counter steering wheel with audio cues, spoken commands for
directional feedback, and a unique tactile map interface that utilizes
compressed air to provide information about the road and obstacles
surrounding the vehicle.

Riccobono knows of mock ups and non-working “blind driver car” set-ups from
the past, but says this is the first working vehicle to put the blind and
visually impaired in control of the steering wheel. “Blind people have
brains, the capacity to make decisions,” he said. “Blind people want to live
independent lives, why would they not want to drive?”

Even once the technology is perfected, laws now barring the blind from
driving and public perception must be changed, Riccobono said. “This is the
piece that we know will be the most difficult,” said Riccobono, adding that
the car must be near-perfected before the National Federation of the Blind
can truly push the car to law-makers and the general public. He said this
effort will take millions of dollars in development.

The 2009-10 student team already is planning major changes to the
technology, including replacing the dirt buggy vehicle with a fully electric
car commonly used by traffic officers in downtown city centers. The
all-electric vehicle would reduce the vibration which can cause problems to
the laser sensor, and it will provide clean electric power for the computing
units and that is better for the environment.

Hong is a National Science Foundation CAREER Award recipient. He received
his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of
Wisconsin-Madison in 1994, and his master’s and doctoral degrees in
mechanical engineering from Purdue University in 1999 and 2002,
respectively.

Contact: Steven Mackay
smackay@vt.edu
540-231-4787
Virginia Tech

Reproduced from http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-07/vt-bct071509.php