Virginia Tech Students Help Develop Vehicle for the Blind

The National Federation of the Blind (NFB) and Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, College of Engineering (Virginia Tech) have partnered to demonstrate the first street vehicle equipped with technology allowing a blind person to drive independently. 

"The National Federation of the Blind is dedicated to the development of innovative technology to improve the lives of blind Americans, and Virginia Tech has accepted our challenge to apply nonvisual interfaces to the task of driving, which has always been wrongly considered impossible for blind people," said NFB President Dr. Marc Maurer. "But we are not trying to build a technology alone.  We are trying to build a technology that can be combined with an intellect to do things that neither could do alone."

But this is not the first vehicle of its kind. Three years ago, Virginia Tech accepted the NFB Blind Driver Challenge to develop a vehicle that can be driven by a blind person, said Dr. Dennis Hong, director of the Robotics and Mechanisms Laboratory at Virginia Tech.

"The challenge was not the development of an autonomous vehicle that could drive a blind person around, but rather the creation of nonvisual interfaces that would allow a blind person to actually make driving decisions," he said. "The first-generation prototype was demonstrated with a modified dune buggy at the NFB Youth Slam in the summer of 2009."

The second-generation prototype will be demonstrated as part of the pre-race activities at the 2011 Rolex 24 At Daytona. The Ford Escape, equipped with nonvisual interface technology, will be driven by a blind individual who will navigate part of the famed Daytona International Speedway course on January 29, 2011.

"This demonstration will break down the wall of stereotypes and misconceptions that prevent our full integration into society by showing the public that the blind have the same capacities as everyone else,"  Maurer said. "Our only challenge is access to the information we need."