Customer Applications - Blind Driver Challenge

“Our partnership with Autonomoustuff was a key to our success in the Blind Driver Challenge project. Their timely technical support, delivery, and their ‘do whatever it takes attitude’ has made it easy for us to purchase key components for this project. A successful project requires strong partners, and AutonomouStuff is one of them.”

Dennis Hong, Founding Director of RoMeLa: Robotics & Mechanisms Laboratory at Virginia Tech

AutonomouStuff, a leading product supplier of automotive perception technologies, is pleased toannounce its products are being used in developing the next generation of NFB Blind Driver Challenge vehicles. The purpose of the NFB Blind Driver Challenge™ is to stimulate non-visual technological innovation through the NFB Jernigan Institute.
IBEO LUX LIDAR provided by AutonomouStuff mounted under the license plate

The goals of this initiative are:

  • To establish a path of technological advancement for non-visual access technology, and close the gap between access technology and general technology.

  • To increase awareness among the university scientific community about the “real problems” facing the blind by providing expertise from the perspective of the blind within the context of a difficult engineering challenge.

  • To demonstrate that vision is not a requirement for success and that the application of innovative nonvisual solutions to difficult problems can create new opportunities for hundreds of thousands of people—blind and sighted.

  • To change the public perceptions about the blind by creating opportunities for the public to view blind people as individuals with capacity, ambition, and a drive for greater independence.
Torc’s ByWire XGV vehicle was integrated with three Ibeo Lux Lidar  sensors that provide the blind driver feedback of the environment in front and behind the vehicle. The scanning data is transferred to the 
non-visual interface used to assist the driver in making the correct driving decisions. To learn more about this technology, you can view videos on our YouTube channel.
The NFB Blind Driver Challenge was taken on by Dr. Dennis Hong and the Robotics and Mechanisms Laboratory (RoMeLa) at Virginia Tech
The challenge has gained national exposure and was recently featured on the TODAY Show, and MotorWeek

You can view the latest updates on the blind driver challenge blog:
http://blinddriverchallengevt.blogspot.com/ 

Click here for a list of a few of the published articles.