Le Chal: Gracious Navigation For Visually Impaired

La Chal (Hindi for ‘take me there’) is a wearable navigation system to help visually challenged people find their way in a strange or new setting. Anirudh Sharma’s (from Rajasthan Technical University) elegant navigation system consists of proximity sensors and Vibrators fitted into one shoe and a Bluethooth padding linked to an Android phone that uses directions by Google Maps via built-in GPS. The user needs to say the destination and Android app calculates the course and then wirelessly transmits the data to the shoe to be used in the tactile form. A propinquity sensor also identifies the obstacles which are ten feet away and warns the user through different vibrators. One more good thing about this system is its cost, as it will take only $20 to install it into a shoe.
Via: GizmoWatch.com