Mark Anthony Riccobono will go into the books as the first blind person to independently drive a car. For the NFB Blind Driver ChallengeT, a program of the U.S. National Federation of the Blind, a Ford Escape hybrid was packed full with technology which enabled him to successfully navigate 1.5 miles of the road course section at the Daytona International Speedway. The car has laser range-finding sensors that enable the computation of a three-dimensional map of the road environment. The TORC Bywire XGV drive-by-wire system is used to convert this data into driving directions. Directions are then sent to some clever devices: DriveGrip, a pair of vibrating gloves that relay steering information, SpeedStrip, a vibration-based device that relays speed information, and AirPix, a device that uses compressed airflow patterns to create tactile images. While the technique is very much the same as that used in autonomous vehicles, the goal here is to allow the blind person to do the actual driving. To make it more difficult, several obstacles were placed in the path of the vehicle, including stationary obstacles and boxes dropped from a van, which he all successfully avoided. No doubt it will take many more years before such a car will be allowed on the public road, but as you can see in the video below, the system works surprisingly well:
Source: Blind Man Drives Car Independently…
More info: NFB Blind Driver Challenge Team Chooses TORC’s ByWire XGV as Base Research Platform…
(hat tip: Engadget)