KALAMAZOO, Mich. — Western Michigan University is using technology to take assisting people with vision impairments to the next level. A professor in the Department of Blindness and Low Vision Studies is working on an app that will help people get across the street more easily.
"We have submitted a proposal to develop a smartphone app that would help us train blind pedestrians, reduce veering," Dr. Dae Kim told FOX 17.
The app would be called Artificial Intelligence-Aided Anti-Veering Training. "So pedestrians' unintended deviation from the straight-line path is called 'veering,' and veering by blind pedestrians could be problematic," Kim explained.
The app is designed to let users know when they're veering to the left or to the right and by how many feet. Kim told FOX 17 the technology could save lives. "Being able to reduce their veering, blind pedestrians will be able to reduce the risk of accidentally getting hurt by those incidents."
As someone who is blind, Dr. Sarahelizabeth Baguhn believes the app could be a game changer. She says a lot goes into simply crossing the street. "It's a lot of auditory input and a little bit of cane input to get across."
Navigating traffic is a process that Baguhn labels exhausting. "You listen to where the traffic comes from and where the traffic goes to have an alignment," she said. "You might also listen to the traffic on the cross street in front of you and try and really, like, square up the front of your body to that so that you're gonna cross straight across."
With Artificial Intelligence-Aided Anti-Veering Training in the works, Baguhn says it will save people with vision impairments time and energy. "I'm not spending so much of my energy, just coping with the blindness and the barriers of a society that wasn't really built for blind people in the first place."
The app is not the only thing the university is working on. Click here for more research and programs in the works.
