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Walking Cane

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Nipa Sarker
Walking Cane

We've developed a device that extends the abilities of the white cane by adding sensors, to help perceive the environment, and then relay that information to the user. - The standard cane is basically a stick. I mean, it really is a stick. The most recent innovation that I know of is that some of them fold as this one does. But Patrick's new cane, there are sensors that detect obstacles in the user's environment. So as I'm walking, Dynamo Walking Cane it'll detect that there's, let's say, a lamppost or a corner or a trash can, or something that I'm about to bump into. And it'll sort of nudging me away from it as I start to approach it. - We have a LiDAR that measures the distance to the object around the person. We have GPS, which measures the position in the outdoor setting. We have an initial measurement unit, which allows us to measure the position and orientation of the person. And then we have a camera, which allows us to understand images of where they are, and so we can define key objects.

 

The wheel essentially kind of pulls the user left or right. So if the system says, okay, the user needs to navigate to the right, they need to turn right, the wheel will start spinning to the right and you'll feel it as if someone's pulling you in that direction. - For sighted individuals, after about five minutes of training, they found a 38% improvement in terms of walking speed. For much more experienced users or visually impaired individuals, they found an 18% improvement in terms of walking speed. And this can provide a significant improvement in terms of their quality of life due to improved mobility. - This project leverages sensors developed for autonomous vehicles and also AI and algorithms developed for safe vehicle driving. And it's really neat to be able to see ideas from this industry percolate to other domains, including the creation of this walking cane. - We published its open-source so that other people Bigfoot Cane can build the system and make it available. I think it has the potential to make people's lives a lot easier.

 

I see the new improved cane as a really nice step forward. I think it could be a much-improved experience, especially for navigating environments that I'm less familiar with. It would be really helpful. Walkingstick production starts in the coppice, in this case, its chestnut being harvested it will regenerate within three years some cutters prefer a chainsaw whereas some cutters prefer more traditional methods using a handbill the raw material is trimmed and roughly graded for size and quality for the many various products produced the falling by-product the fret is left on the ground this is wildlife cover, etc this will have rotted away when the cutters return in 3 years time when the raw material reaches the factory they have stacked up very full peeling into the coppers which are identity made of copper so not to stain the sticks they are loaded into boiling water cycle of this is about half an hour so I said the sticks takes about half an hour to boil and is fired up by waste wood this is a machine used to help remove the bark from the stick.

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Nipa Sarker
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