振动手套帮助盲人“看见”周围环境

 

This is the prediction of a British team who has developed a prototype glove, dubbed² SenSei, that provides vibration³ cues to a wearer. 

 

The glove features a battery-operated ultrasonic⁴ senor on the back of the glove, which emits different levels of sound similar to a car's parking sensor⁵. 

 

Ultrasound waves are sent out, hit the obstacle, and when they return to the glove, they vibrate the fingers. 

 

Different patterns and intensities⁶ let the user know how their distance between objects. 

 

The glove was designed by two students at Nottingham University who wanted to develop a gadget⁷ that could be used without much training. 

 

'At present, the attachment⁸ is quite large, but we are working on a new system containing a microprocessor⁹ that is smaller and not as heavy,' Raivat Luthura, one of the designers told Julia Pierce at The Engineer. 

 

The design recently won £1,000 ($1,540) and first prize in the Entrepreneurship and Business Competition run by Nottingham University Business School. 

 

'This will also make it more aesthetically¹⁰ pleasing. We're going to use the money from the competition for further development of the device,' Mr Luthura added. 

 

It follows the launch of a similar device last year which helps people who are blind and visually impaired¹¹ to learn Braille. 

 

Vibrating motors at the knuckle¹² of each finger in the gloves buzz to tell a wearer to press a corresponding key, and the system tells them which letter they are typing. 

 

And the gloves even teach the wearer when they are not paying attention. 

 

'The process is based on passive haptic learning (PHL),' said Thad Starner, a Georgia Tech professor who is also the technical lead on Google's Project Glass. 

 

'We've learned that people can acquire motor skills through vibrations¹³ without devoting active attention to their hands.

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