Sixth Sense (GY)

  • Addressing the challenges of mobility faced by the visually-impaired by developing technologies for navigation and obstacle avoidance

Logo of Sixth Sense eyeball represented with circuits

This project addresses the challenges of mobility faced by the visually-impaired. The research team will study the behavior of visually-impaired individuals within an urban environment and develop technologies for navigation and obstacle avoidance. The overarching goal is to promote safe autonomous mobility for the visually-impaired and improve their quality of life.

The team will tackle the following challenges:

1. Characterizing the mobility of the visually-impaired and their interactions with urban environments

2. Estimating individual position in the environment and developing tools for obstacle avoidance

3. Laying the foundation of wireless communications between individual navigation systems and the urban environment

4. Testing navigation systems in controlled and realistic scenarios

 

Methods & Technologies

  • Microcontrollers (Arduino)
  • Sensors
  • Computer Vision
  • Navigation Systems
  • Wireless Communication
  • Virtual Reality
  • 3D Printing
  • Soldering
  • Circuit Design
  • Experiments with Human Subjects
  • Statistical Analysis

Subteams

  • Prototyping
  • Software Design
  • Human experiments

Areas of Interest

  • Electrical Engineering
  • Computer Engineering
  • Software Engineering
  • Computer Science
  • Mechanical Engineering
  • Biomedical Engineering
  • Behavioral Sciences
  • Human-computer interactions

Partners

  • NYU Tandon School of Engineering
  • NYU Langone
  • Lighthouse Guild

Faculty Advisors