Tec-Innovative’s shoes for the blind to be upgraded with cameras

Tec-Innovation’s intelligent shoes have sensors to let the wearer know if there are obstacles in their path. (Image Credit: Lunghammer/TU Graz)

Tec-Innovation, an Austrian startup, developed an intelligent shoe called InnoMake, suitable for blind and visually impaired people. It guides the wearer in the right direction and uses ultrasonic sensors to warn them when obstacles obstruct their path, increasing their safety while walking. The shoe could provide more capabilities with integrated cameras.  These camera-mounted InnoMake shoes aren’t available yet. A pair of the existing version can be purchased for $3,840 from the company’s website.

"Ultrasonic sensors on the toe of the shoe detect obstacles up to four meters away. The wearer is then warned by vibration and/or acoustic signals. This works very well and is already a great help to me personally," says Markus Raffer, one of the founders of Tec-Innovation and himself visually impaired.

Similar to the La Chal shoe, InnoMake comes with a toe-mounted sensor that beams ultrasound pulses, which bounce off an object in the wearer’s path and return to the sensor. This enables it to detect obstacles that are 4 meters away. A haptic feedback system then warns the user by causing the shoe to buzz their foot and creates an audible alert on the user’s Bluetooth-connected smartphone. Taking it a step further, Tec-Innovation designed it so that the LEDs on each sensor flicker when it detects an obstacle. 

David Schinagl, a researcher at TU Graz, analyzing three eye-view shots of the camera. The algorithm identifies and marks the areas that are safe to walk on. (Image Credit: Lunghammer/TU Graz)

Tec-Innovation designed the shoe in collaboration with the Graz University of Technology. Researchers are currently developing a camera-mounted version of the shoe’s sensor. Deep-learning algorithms analyze the camera’s output. The video accompanies the ultrasound system, helping to make sure there are no obstacles in the walking path. When it detects an obstacle, the video is used to determine if the user needs to step up over (a rock), avoid walking into (wall), or avoid stepping into (pothole) anything. Then, it warns them in those circumstances.

Other places also want the app-connected sensor to share data via the internet. That way, various cities with obstacles could be mapped, providing blind people with a warning when they approach hazardous areas. "As it currently stands, only the wearer benefits in each case from the data the shoe collects as he or she walks. It would be much more sustainable if this data could also be made available to other people as a navigation aid," says computer scientist Friedrich Fraundorfer Fraundorfer.

This isn't the first effort to help visually impaired people interact with the world. Check out these amazing stories:

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