This $400 Cane Uses Autonomous Vehicle Tech to help Guide the Visually Impaired
The LIDAR sensor and wheels at the end of the cane. (Andrew Brodhead/Stanford University)
Borrowing from autonomous vehicles technology, a team of researchers has built a self-navigating smart cane which in tests, increased walking speed for visually impaired volunteers by 18 percent. "We wanted to optimize this project for ease of replication and cost," says Mykel Kochenderfer. "Anyone can go and download all the code, bill of materials, and electronic schematics, all for free."
