Fiji's USP designs new device for the blind

Transcript

Engineers at the University of the South Pacific in Fiji have developed what they say is a hand-held mobility device for blind people that can easily identify all kinds of obstacles in their way.

The "Eye Cane" is a device the size of a remote control that uses ultrasonic waves to detect obstacles around a person, and communicates that to a person either through vibrations or audio prompts through a hearing aid.

A senior lecturer and lead designer, Utkal Mehta, says he was inspired to create the device after seeing visually impaired students around campus struggling to use a cane.

He told Jamie Tahana feedback from people who have used the device has been incredibly positive.

UTKAL MEHTA:  We started with kinds of design where they can easily carry and use and they don't need any kind of system or training on it.  So we worked around six months and then after we made two or three designs then after we end up with some final design we started work on the software part then after we gradually built up and we ended up with the prototype.

JAMIE TAHANA:  Take us through what it looks like.

UM:  So it looks like a simple mobile RV remote control and it has two types of switches.  One switch is used to know the surrounding opening.  Say for example one mode is like if someone is in the room and that room is completely closed but that person wants to see where is the opening or out gate or exit.  That device can rotate around and that device will give the trigger.  So that is one.  There is another mode of switch available which is used for knowing the current time or date and the person can also hear what type of object is there in front of them.  This is a very simple and handy mobile device which can be just used in place of the normal stick or normal cane.  

JT:  So how does it know if there is a wall there?

UM:  For that we use the fuzzy logics and intelligence programming in it.  It has two ultrasonic sensors at particular angles and we obtain the reflections from the obstacles and based on that obstacle reflections and the time we receive the reflections.

JT:  OK so it kind of sends out waves?

UM:  Yes. Ultrasonic sensors are located and mounted on the top of the device.

JT:  How does it communicate the layout of the room to the person?

UM:  So blind person can carry it by hand and if there is an obstacle, according to the obstacle distance from the person, that vibration intensity will increase or decrease accordingly.  There is another mode which is like hearing it, where a person can hear the audio sound and that audio sound is clearly informed about obstacle distance and the type of obstacles.  Obstacle in the sense that if there is a staircase going further downwards it will tell the staircase the first step is close.  There is a depth.  It tells the depth.  It's closer, it's near to you.

JT:  You've worked with the Fiji Blind Society with this and some visually impaired people have used this as part of a trial haven't they?  What did they have to say about it?

UM:  They really found this very exciting and they told me that 'if I use this device then I won't use cane in normal life.  It is more easy than a cane.'

JT:  What is next for it?  Are you hoping to get it into some form of mass production?

UM:  So this is now our next step to build 10 to 15 more devices like this and we will give to more people for long period of time and we would like to record some feedback for longer trials.  This data we will use to file a patent.