Dr. Cang Ye has developed a “smart cane” that will help visually impaired people travel more easily and safely.
University of Arkansas at Little Rock researcher Cang Ye and his students demonstrated their Co-robotic Cane on June 9 during the Congressional Robotics Caucus at the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington, D.C.
Ye said the demonstration went very well and the cane is still an early prototype.
He told Arkansas Business the product looks like a typical walking cane but has a 3D camera attached to it. Ye said it could estimate the position of the cane and its user in their environment, helping the visually-impaired user navigate things like doorways and stairwells.
He also said the cane has a retractable rolling ball tip.
The caucus marked the fifth anniversary of the National Robotics Initiative.
Ye joined a select group of innovators from Cornell University, Johns Hopkins University, the Massachusetts Institution of Technology (MIT) and other schools chosen to participate in the national event.
Ye works for UALR’s Department of Systems Engineering and is an Arkansas Research Alliance fellow. He received $320,389 from the National Science Foundation’s Robust Intelligence Program for the cane project and that its core technology is 3D data segmentation.
The cane his team developed is intended to make daily travel easier and safer for the visually impaired by locating its position and using that information to guide users to their destinations, according to a news release.
It also states that Ye is involved in other similar products that will help those with disabilities, such as a quadrupedal robotic walker and wearable object manipulation aid.
The National Robotics Initiative, led by the National Science Foundation, is a “multi-agency effort to accelerate the development and use of robots that work beside or cooperatively with people,” according to the release.
It states that the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Department of Agriculture, Department of Defense, Department of Energy, NASA and National Institutes of Health are involved with the initiative.
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