Driving a car has been an impossible task for a blind people, but from what we heard just now, researchers are trying hard to make it a possibility to enable a blind person to drive a car and they even have a prototype ready for the above claim. Once again, we are elated to say how much proud we are of Technology. It really keeps growing each single day.
As a first step, the prototype of the vehicle, named as Ford Escape — a ray of hope for those without sight — will be showcased at an upcoming event, called the Rolex 24 at Daytona, as part of the pre-race activities. The car will be very well equipped with nonvisual interface technology, which is making it a reality.
The organization behind making this a reality is National Federation of the Blind (NFB), who have teamed up with Virginia tech plan who deserve bout credit and our praise for their work and dedication for the purpose.
This car is a brain child of the president of the NFB, Mr. Marc Maurer, who had this vision of ‘car for the blind’ and he let it know to the public ten years ago, when he was so appointed. Critics and Donors argued and questions were raised about the possibility of this and even termed it as an unreachable goal, but now it does seems like a reality. Right?
While it was NFB who foresaw it, they were engineers at Virginia Tech, who set it practically and looked after how it can be made possible. These guys looked after implementation, making it really feasible. As Dr. Dennis Hong, Director at Virginia Tech says, they took the challenge three years ago and set the goal of a car that does not drive the blind person around automatically, but instead let such a person drive the car himself. We are impressed and thank them for their thinking and efforts therefor.
So, lets have a word on technology that’s making it possible. It’s called as Nonvisual Interface Technology. It uses sensors to detect objects around the car and passes the info to the driver. It is able to find and send info about all objects in the driver’s surroundings on 360 degree view. It helps driver to maneuver the car accordingly and thus making him able to drive a car.
We’ll bring you more on this and keep our fingers crossed for its success. Say in comments, what you feel about this.
Find more cool stuff about cars. Check out Homemade Batmobile Remakes and do enjoy the Jaguar’s Superbike: Beast of all bikes.
Thanks Rob for the info!
