Making a car for blind drivers Dennis Hong
many believe driving is an activity
solely reserved for those who can see a
blind person driving a vehicle safely
and independently was thought to be an
impossible task until now hello my name
is Dennis Hong and we’re bringing
freedom and independence to the blind by
building a vehicle for the visually
impaired so before I talk about this car
foot of line let me briefly tell you
about another project I worked on called
the DARPA urban challenge now this was
about building a robotic car that can
drive itself you press Start and nobody
touches anything and can reach his
destination fully autonomously so in
2007 our team won half a million dollars
by placing third place in this
competition so about that time the
National Federation of the blind or NFB
challenged the research community about
who can do up a car that said blind
person drive safely and independently we
decided to give it a try because we
thought hey how hard could it be we just
have a already autonomous vehicle we
just put a blind person in it and we’re
done right we could have been more wrong
what nfe wanted was not a vehicle that
can drive a blind person around but a
vehicle where a blind person can make
active decisions and drive so I had to
throw everything out the window and
start from scratch so to test this crazy
idea we drove a small dune buggy
prototype vehicle to test the Ofili and
in the summer of 2009 we invited dozens
of blind youth from all over the country
and give them a chance to give it for a
spin it was an absolutely amazing
experience but the problem of this car
was it was designed to only be driven in
a very controlled environment and a flat
closed up parking lot even the lane is
defined by red traffic cones so with
this success we decide to take the next
big step to develop a real car that can
be driven on the real roads so how does
it work well it’s a rather complex
system but let me try to explain that
make it simplified so we have three
steps we have
perception computation and non-visual
interfaces now obviously the driver
cannot see so the system needs to
perceive the environment and gather
information for the driver for that we
use a inertial measurement unit so it
measures acceleration angular acts
operation like a human ear inner ear we
fuse that information with a GPS unit to
get an estimate of the location of the
car we also use two cameras to detect
the lanes of the road and we also used
three laser rangefinders the laser scan
the environment to detect obstacles
car approaching from the front the back
and also any obstacles that run into the
roads and the obstacles around the
vehicle so all this vast amount of
information is then fed into the
computer and the computer can do two
things one is first of all process this
information to have an understanding of
the environment these are the lanes of
the road there’s an obstacles and convey
this information to the driver the
system is also smart enough to figure
out the safest way to operate the car so
we can also generate instructions on how
to operate the controls of the vehicle
but the problem is this how do we convey
this information and instructions to a
person who cannot see fast enough and
accurate off so he can drive so for this
we developed many different type of non
visual user interface technologies so
starting from a three dimensional
pinging sound system of vibrating vests
click wheel with voice commands a leg
strip even a shoe that applies pressure
to the foot but today we’re going to
talk about three of these non visual
user interfaces now the first interface
is called a drive grip so these are a
pair of gloves that has vibrating
elements on the knuckle part so it can
convey instructions about how to steer
at the direction and the intensity
another device is called speed strip so
this is a chair as a matter of fact
actually a massage chair we got it out
and we rearrange these arriving elements
and different patterns and we actuate
them to convey information about the
speed and also instructions how to use
the gas and the brake pedal so over here
you can see how the computer understands
the environments and because you cannot
see the vibration we actually put red
LEDs on the drive grip so you can
actually see what’s happening this is
the sensory data and that data is
transferred to the devices through the
computer so these two devices drive grip
and speed strip are very effective but
the problem is these are instructional
cue devices so this is not really
freedom right the computer tells you how
to drive turn left turn right speed up
stop we call this the backseat driver
problem right so we’re moving away from
these instructional cue devices and
now focusing more on the informational
devices a good example for this
informational non-visual user interface
is called air picks so think of it as a
monitor for the blind so it’s a small
tablet has many holes in it and
compressed air comes out so it can
actually draw images so even though
you’re blind put your hand over it you
can see the lanes of the road on
obstacles this actually can also change
the frequency of the air coming out and
possibly the temperatures it’s actually
multi-dimensional user interface so here
you can see in the left camera on the
right camera from the vehicle and how
the computer interprets that and says
that information to the air picks for
this we’re showing a simulator a blind
person driving using the air picks the
simulator was also very useful for
training the mind drivers and also
quickly testing different type of ideas
for a different type of non visual user
interfaces so basically that’s how it
works so just a month ago in January
29th we unveiled this vehicle for the
very first time to the public at the
world-famous Daytona International
Speedway
during the Rolex 24 racing event we also
had some surprises let’s take a look
their first box and now let’s see if
Mark avoid he does he passes it on the
right
there’s boxes out the fourth boxes out
and he’s perfectly making this play to
continue
Mark’s gonna give me a ride back to the
hotel
so since we start this project will be
getting hundreds of letters emails phone
calls from people from all around the
world letters thanking us but sometimes
they also get funny letters like this
one now understand there where there’s
Braille on a drive of ATM machine but
sometimes
but sometimes I also do get you know I
wouldn’t call it hate mail but letters
of really strong concerns dr. Hong are
you insane try to put blight people on
the road you must be out of your mind
but this vehicle is a prototype vehicle
and it’s not gonna be on the road until
it’s proven safe as or safer than
today’s vehicle and I truly believe this
can’t be happen but still with the
society would they accept such a radical
idea how we’re going to handle insurance
how are you going to issue a driving
license there’s many of these kind of
different hurdles besides technology
challenges that we to address before
these firms in reality of course the
main goal of this projects to develop a
car for the blind but potentially more
important than this is the the
tremendous value of the spin-up
technology that can come from this
project the sensors that use can see
through the dark the fog and rain and
together it is new a new type of
interfaces we can use these technologies
that apply to safer cars for sighted
people or for the blind everyday home
appliances in the educational setting in
the office setting just imagine in a
classroom a teacher writes on the
blackboard and a blind student can see
what’s written and reusing these
non-visual interfaces this is priceless
so today the things I’ve showed you
today is just the beginning thank you
very much