[Nfbf-l] Driving Blind? We May Live to See the Day

[Kirk]

AWESOMEE! KH
Kirk Harmon
1031 Lenmore CT.
Orlando, FL. 32812
Office: 407-380-3371
Cell: 407-473-2176

Founder
Florida Disabled Citizens for Progress
President-CEO
FDCP Association
911 cell Phone Bank
Manager

Mayor's Veterans Advisory Counsel

State of Florida Veterans Counsel
Member
NFB
ACB
TRIAD
DAV
BVA
Disabled
Advocate

for Florida

" F.D.C.P. Turning HOPE into REALITY"

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Sherri" <flmom2006 at gmail.com>
To: "nfbf-l" <nfbf-l at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Thursday, March 18, 2010 11:07 PM
Subject: [Nfbf-l] Driving Blind? We May Live to See the Day




I am all for this, but as is said in the article, social acceptance will 
come a lot later than the car will actually be invented.

Sherri

Driving Blind? We May Live to See the Day
Tom Dunkel Contributor

(March 18) -- With public opinion divided over just how dangerous it
is for motorists to text-message or yak on cell phones, imagine the
debate taking a wildly unexpected turn: How would you feel about
sharing the road with blind drivers?

The idea sounds preposterous, akin to the New York Philharmonic
hiring a deaf conductor. But the National Federation of the Blind has
made development of a car that's suitable for the visually impaired
an organizational goal, and not a symbolic one.

"It's absolutely intended to be real," says Mark Riccobono, executive
director of the federation's Jernigan Institute in Baltimore, which
is dedicated to pushing the envelope of applied technology. "For us,
this is exactly the same as in 1962 when [President] John F. Kennedy
said, 'We are going to the moon.' "


The federation has partnered with students at the Virginia Tech
College of Engineering for what's dubbed the Blind Driver Challenge.
Riccobono, who himself is blind, drove the prototype vehicle -- a
super-sophisticated, laser-equipped dune buggy -- last spring,
zipping around a Virginia Tech parking lot at about 20 mph.

The next step involves taking a Ford Escape hybrid SUV and making it
completely roadworthy. The design team is now working on systems that
can identify individual traffic lanes and can distinguish between
similarly shaped objects such as a tree and a stop sign. The National
Federation of the Blind hopes to unveil this next-generation Ford
Escape in the summer of 2011, showcasing it in a series of
demonstration drives along the East Coast.

"The technology for a fully autonomous vehicle exists today," says
Dennis Hong, an associate professor in Virginia Tech's department of
engineering who is supervising the 13 students working on the
project. The trick, however, is to put a blind driver in
decision-making control of the car rather than merely having him or
her obey instructions issued by an on-board computer. That degree of
self-reliance is at least several years away.

Cultural barriers are another matter.

It likely will take blind drivers "much, much longer" to gain legal
and social acceptance than it will take engineers to build them a
safe car, says Virginia Tech senior Kimberly Wenger of Ponte Vedre
Beach, Fla., the student team leader. "There are way too many
skeptics out there."

Nearly everyone reacted with skepticism when the Federation for the
Blind announced its driving initiative almost a decade ago. "It kind
of sat dormant for a couple of years," Riccobono admits.

The federation then put up $3,000 in seed money and asked engineering
schools across the country to take up the Blind Driver Challenge as a
pro bono cause. Only students from Virginia Tech's Robotics and
Mechanisms Laboratory answered the call.

The modified dune buggy they created utilizes a front-mounted,
laser-range-finder sensor. It constantly feeds visual data into a
computer that "interface" with a blind driver in two ways.

First, the driver wears a vest embedded with tiny motors that vibrate
at different intensity levels according to how fast the car should be going.

Secondly, the computer issues audio cues every few seconds, telling
the driver how much to turn the steering wheel and in what direction.
Wenger admits that the robot voice can be "a little obnoxious."
Indeed, it's like having a know-it-all back-seat driver that doesn't
know when to shut up.

As part of the design process, some students put on blindfolds and
took test drives. Wenger describes that as a "very scary,"
reality-bending experience. Most of them could feel the dune buggy
surging forward from the moment they strapped themselves into the
driver's seat. In fact, it was standing still, simply idling in neutral.

Blind drivers had their own acclamation problems. Wesley Majerus, a
staff technology specialist at the Federation of the Blind, initially
was "overwhelmed" by the vibrating vest and the robot voice. Once he
got the hang of things, though, it was "liberating" to make the
transition from lifelong passenger to ... driver. To road warrior. To
chrome-wheeled, fuel-injected, born-to-run American.


In the grand tradition of automobile innovation, the 2011 test model
is being tweaked. The laser sensor has been upgraded. The vibrating
vest has given way to a pair of vibrating driving gloves. The audio
cues are history. Instead, the driver will get his bearings from a
so-called flexible-surface "tactile map" on the dashboard. The map
runs on compressed air and changes shape to reflect what lies on the
road ahead. The driver reads the map with his fingertips.

According to Riccobono, the Blind Driver Challenge has gotten a
"mixed reaction" thus far. Any fears are unfounded, he says. Nothing
is imminent. It will take several million more dollars and several
million more hours of brainstorming to produce the proper,
blooper-proof vehicle. Even then, the appeal might be limited. But
how many blind people venture onto the road isn't important. Their
freedom to choose is.

"It wasn't getting to the moon that was significant," Riccobono says.
"It was the path of technology development and how it got the nation
to think about itself."

In other words, relax. This is just another small step for mankind.
There's no need to worry about the prospect of blind people driving
automobiles.

Well, not until they get behind the wheel and start text-messaging.
Filed under: Nation, Science, Top Stories


Sherri Brun, NFBF Secretary and Newsline® Coordinator
E-mail:  flmom2006 at gmail.com
http://www.nfbnewslineonline.org
http://www.nfbflorida.org

"Don't give up something you want forever for something you want only for 
now!"
_______________________________________________
Nfbf-l mailing list
Nfbf-l at nfbnet.org
http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nfbf-l_nfbnet.org
To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for 
Nfbf-l:
http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nfbf-l_nfbnet.org/kvharmon54%40gmail.com