North Carolina Central University researchers are testing smart canes aimed at helping blind or visually impaired people. Standard folding canes are used to scan or detect things around a person, like obstacles on the ground. But, NCCU associate professor Sean Tikkun, who is also the lead on the project, said smart canes do even more, like being able to protect the person's full body.
"So if you have a low-hanging branch or if you have a sign, as we do in Raleigh, where we're doing our training, you can get early warning from that device that you know something's in that upper range," he said. "So the first thing it does is it doesn't just protect the lower (part of the body). It protects the upper."
Each smart cane has a voice assistant with speakers, a microphone, and allows a person to control a navigation app through their iPhone. It also allows a person to detect things like pitch, vibration, and taps. Tikkun said the smart canes were created by WeWalk, a Turkish company.
“So for the company, what we're doing is we're applying the technology we are testing out their platform,” he said. “I can log in, and I can pull up data for each of my students, canes who are spread out across four states, and I can see how much they walked this week.”
The canes for the research project are funded through a $1.25 million grant from the Department of Education over the course of five years. Tikkun said moving forward, he hopes people will adopt smart canes as a result of the work he and his students have gathered.
