CANE-AI: A Digital Cane for the Visually-Impaired

Author: Tyler Tran

The world is no stranger to visual impairment with Georgetown University reporting 20 million Americans with visual impairment. On a global scale at least 1.5 billion people are afflicted with macular degeneration or some form of retinal disease, a figure rivaling the population of China. Yet, the visually impaired continue to roam in a strange world of dangerous obstructions, new constructions, and an ever-changing, complex urban landscape. Even more alarming is the notion that the visually impaired population in the U.S. is projected to explode, doubling in the next twenty years (NIH).

It seems the visually impaired live in America’s social “blind spot” with 1 in 4 experiencing anxiety and depression as reported by the CDC. With a staggering 70% unemployment rate and 50% reporting a serious fall at least once a year, perhaps, we need to take a different approach other than “out of sight out of mind”. The impact of visual impairment reaches deep into our nation’s pocketbook. According to the World Health Organization, the cost alone in the U.S. is $411 billion (in purchasing power parity), presenting an economic burden or loss of productivity greatly overshadowing the $25 million it would take to fulfill the healthcare needs of the total visually impaired population.

Then there are other implications that are unquantified or poorly measured. Do unassisted blind people have low family formation? Does immobility compound to their level of exercise, wellness, and lifespan? Does accessibility limit their higher education? It's difficult to get somewhere if you can't begin to get there.

While we have a hazy picture of the magnitude and severity of visual impairment, we still struggle to wrap arms around all the social impacts. What is clear? The problem is clear: there is no cost-effective, non-invasive, fully functional, digital assistive cane out in the market. One that unifies all the disparate cutting edge visual technologies into a single device. One that can address the special needs of the visually impaired and help to navigate them safely from point A to point B, from helplessness to self-help, from the dark into the light.

CANE-AI is a fully integrated digital assistive cane equipped with state of the art sensors, GPS guidance systems, speech recognition, and visual software to help navigate the visually impaired. With such tools, the visually impaired no longer need to guide a walking stick, instead the visually impaired are being guided with features such as real time alerts and object recognition to paint a fuller picture of their surroundings.

This development of this digital cane is still ongoing.