Haptic backpack and a Raspberry Pi brings navigation for the visually impaired

Shashank Sharma and his team have developed a backpack to aid visually-impaired users. The backpack, called BackMap, uses an app to input the location you’re trying to get to and then Raspberry Pi-powered motors attached to the straps vibrate to tell you which direction to turn. The project came out of TechCrunch Disrupt NY’s 2017 hackathon. It is expected that the same system can be used for internal spaces using beacons, allowing users to navigate huge spaces such as conference venues. You can read more, and see a video of the project presentation, over at TechCrunch.

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