Berkeley Students Create Wheelchair Add-On to Help Blind Users Navigate
From: R&D Magazine - 04/28/2017
By: Laura Panjwani

Wheelchair users who are blind or visually impaired face a plethora of
additional challenges, from navigating up a skinny wheelchair ramp to easily
getting in and out of a handicap-accessible van. While “smart” wheelchairs do
offer some features that make these users lives’ easier, they are often
prohibitively expensive.

Two University of California, Berkeley students are working to change that.
The two seniors, Tomas Vega and Corten Singer, both graduating this May with
double majors in computer and cognitive science - have created WheelSense, a
modular, customizable add-on system for wheelchairs that uses a system of
sensors and software to help make navigation easier for visually impaired
users. The system was designed specifically to be inexpensive, costing less
than $150 to create, and its design and software are open-sourced so that
anyone in need can recreate it.

The WheelSense system is designed with infrared range finders that detect how
far away an obstacle is or if the distance from the sensor to the ground is
about to change. It sounds a tone when it detects a frontal drop-off such as
stairs or a curb.

Additional sensors are in place to detect the edges of wheelchair ramps or
other paths.

Read the entire article at:
http://www.rdmag.com/article/2017/04/berkeley-students-create-wheelchair-add-help-blind-users-navigate

WheelSense Facebook webpage
https://www.facebook.com/WheelSense