‘Smart’ facial recognition cane for blinds

A revolutionary ‘smart’ cane that enables the visually impaired to instantly identify friends and family may soon be available.

The ‘XploR’ mobility cane, being developed by Birmingham City University students Steve Adigbo, Waheed Rafiq and Richard Howlett, uses smartphone technology to recognise familiar faces from up to 10 metre away.

The cane also features Global Positioning System (GPS) functionality to aid navigation.

“The smart cane incorporates facial recognition technology to alert the user when they are approaching a relative or friend. There’s nothing else out there like this at the moment,” said Adigbo.

The team has already presented the XploR cane to medical and science professionals in Luxembourg and France, and plan to visit organisations in Germany later this year.

“Medical and healthcare companies in France really liked the product. Hopefully it’ll be making a real difference to people’s lives soon,” said Waheed.

The students have designed the XploR cane to detect faces up to 10 metre away, vibrating when detecting a recognisable individual from a bank of images stored on an internal SD memory card.

The device will guide users towards friends and family members using an ear piece and audio guidance, with the information being relayed through Bluetooth technology.

The students conducted market research at the Beacon Centre for the Blind in Wolverhampton, West Midlands, to determine key features that the visually impaired would find useful in a mobility cane.

“We found that high-spec technology features were essential requirements for users, as well as the cane needing to be fairly lightweight and easy to use,” said Waheed.

“We’ll be returning to the Beacon Centre later this year for people to test the product and also to highlight the training and security features of the cane,” said Waheed.