Car for blind drivers

Recently I am working on the project for visually impaired or blind people. My personal  experience of dialogue in the dark ( an experience in total darkness where led by blind guide) evoke my attention to the life of people who suffer from visual problems. We take visual ability for granted and we do shopping, crossing the street and all sorts of every day tasks without even thinking about them. But all these can be a big challenge for visually impaired or blind people if there is not enough facilities for them to make their life easy. Today’s technology is a crucial factor in designing products for people with different kinds of disabilities.

While I was researching I found some very interesting technological devices that help visually impaired to do every day tasks. In my research I came across very interesting Ted Talk speech which was about the car for the blind. Even the title is frightening, how a blind person could drive?

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It seems like impossible become possible. That was a project by NFB (National Federation of the Blind)  that challenge research community for ideas for giving ideas that how blind people could  drive. The project was supervised by Dr.Dennis Hong and they developed a car for the blind.  The process is somehow complicated by the use of recent  technologies. There are three steps for designing this car: perception, computation and non-visual interface. There is a need of a system that can perceive the environment instead of a blind driver, then the computation process give the understanding of the environment and finally the biggest challenge is conveying this information to the person who cannot see. All these are happening by the use of the high technological devices that are being invented every day. So by the use of technology impossible become possible. One day we can see blind people driving in the street as safe as other people.

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These speed up technology is changing our life. New technologies seems to make all impossible possible, and give a new aspect to our life as human being. So even people with disabilities  still will have a chance to benefit from the society. It is how the world has been changing changing from the early civilization that blind babies were abandoned and left to die to now that blind people have the same right and opportunities as other people.

For more information visit

http://www.ted.com/talks/dennis_hong_making_a_car_for_blind_drivers.html

Image 1 retrieved from http://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/w/white_stick.asp

Image 2 retrieved from http://www.motorauthority.com/news/1046801_blind-drivers-in-2011-sound-scary