Dror Ortho Design Inc (DROR)

[Stonemonsta]

Passive haptics to navigate the blind...

Published: 23 March 2019

Four experiments were conducted with the Novint Falcon, a low cost 3D force feedback commercial haptic device. The main findings can be summarized as follows: (1) Active haptics offers a clear superiority over passive haptics for shape recognition tasks. This is mainly due to the nature of purposive actions, which ease the perception of object solidity. Passive haptics conveys the shape exploration process as the sensation of being guided along pathways. (2) In passive haptic exploration, simple and complex pathways can be recognized much better than chance performance. Haptic guiding direction is easy discriminable and (3) it can be effectively exploited in tasks such as navigation/mobility assistance.
Future work aims to convert the experimental setup of Figure 10 into a compact handheld kinesthetic haptic device that assists the navigation of blind and visually impaired people. The prototype is expected to offer the intuitive passive haptic feedback of a guide dog with a low-cost, efficient, and ergonomic design. As in previous projects [25], a GPS-based technology will complement the haptic device by enabling wayfinding in urban environments.

https://www.mdpi.com/2079-9292/8/3/355/htm