Students of Harvard has launched a startup called Foresight and designed a vest like wearable to help visually impaired and partially sighted people to navigate easily. The haptic feedback vest will direct individuals with limited vision. These student groups won the Innovation Award in the 2020 Harvard President’s Innovation Challenge.
Sensory impairments including vision impairment have long been known to reduce the essence of life and prolong rehabilitation and the magnitude of these problems will likely increase as the world population ages. In the nonexistence of treatments that can effectively restore the natural sensory function, approaches like augmenting deficits may serve as effective alternatives.
The wearable navigation aid for the visually impaired individual uses computer vision technology and cutting-edge soft robotics. Connecting the wearable worn around the neck to the user’s smartphone camera identifies objects nearby and this information triggers soft textile units on the individual’s body that inflate to give haptic feedback as objects approach and pass.
The smart wearable technology industries were constantly evolving to make everyone’s lives better and smoother, notably in the medical or healthcare field. The wearable tech is here to serve desperately desired purposes from heartbeat sensing smart bands to tumor detecting bras. This latest invention by students of Harvard is particularly designed to help visually-impaired individuals or partially-sighted ones.
Most of the available wearable navigation aids rely on uncomfortable vibrating motors, which is bothersome to users. But Foresight uses the next level Soft actuators, which are more comfortable and can give the same tactile information as of a vibrating motor. The gap between the object and the user correlates with the pressure they feel on their body from the actuators with Foresight. The computer vision algorithm identifies and classifies objects, where the software can estimate the distance of the object from the camera and how fast it is moving by calibrating the ratios of that bounding box.
Foresight’s vision is not to get rid of any current tools, but to provide a more robust sensory experience to the visually impaired. The team is motivated by the opportunity to apply emerging technology to provide an implementable solution that may help many people.
