There are 36 million blind people in the world, but less than half use white canes or costly commercial sensory substitutions. The proposed system can be largely digitally distributed and manufactured to allow them to solve the primary tasks of navigation, orientation, and obstacle detection to ensure their safety and mobility. It conveys point-distance information by utilizing the natural active sensing approach and modulates measurements into haptic feedback with various vibration patterns.

Published paper: Aliaksei L. Petsiuk and Joshua M. Pearce. Low-Cost Open Source Ultrasound-Sensing Based Navigational Support for the Visually Impaired. Sensors 2019, 19(17), 3783; doi:10.3390/s19173783. https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/19/17/3783