Smart Canes tested by NCCU

Canes for the blind have gotten smarter - sort of.

"It's kind of a misnomer," said Sean Tikkun, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the department of curriculum and instruction, who instructs teachers of the blind and visually impaired.

"A smart cane is a standard white cane, but its handle is jam-packed with all the technology you can put in there," said Tikkun.

Tikkun first became aware of smart canes during his annual visit to the Consumer Electronics Show five or six years ago. The manufacturer WeWALK sent North Carolina Central University(NCCU) its initial version of the cane for testing and review.

Now the program has purchased and implemented the WeWALK 2 cane for instruction and evaluation. The devices are paid for out of a $1.25 million federal grant from the Office of Special Educations Programs. Sixty percent of the grant will be used to educate 24 graduate students.

The smart cane can assist users in accessing buses and trains, offer turn-by-turn navigation assistance while walking and has voice assistance. It can also detect objects and warn the user before they hit them.

"While the technology has been around for at least 30 years, it's been bulky," Tikkun said. "This is the first time anyone has used miniaturization."

The smart cane also has benefits for trainers. It has an accelerometer to measure motion.

"If you register the cane with a training app, the trainer can see how you are using the cane," Tikkun said. "We've never been able to capture that data with a human. It could vastly improve training."

The grant will also be used to train graduate students on other technology such as bone induction headphones - which allow users to hear directions and traffic at the same time - and miniature video cameras which can be worn on a hat or lanyard.

It's not yet clear whether smart canes will become the standard for blind people. The current models cost $850 - $1,150. A conventional cane can be found online for as little as $10.

"Most people rely on rehabilitative services to purchase their canes," said Tikkun. "We don't know if they will pay for smart canes."

Cane Training

While all the graduate students earning a Master of Education in special education - visual impairment have been issued smart canes, they also continue to train on conventional white canes.

In June, ten graduate students were training on Main Street in downtown Durham. One of them, Doug Lockard of McLean, Virginia, was wearing a blindfold while seeking to navigate his way down the sidewalk.

"It's a little nerve-wracking," Lockard said. "Once you get disoriented, it can be hard to realign."

Lockard works with adults who have mental illness, but his aim is to become a certified orientation and mobility specialist. To do that, he has to understand the equipment that his clients will use, including white canes.

With an instructor close by, Lockard swishes his cane back and forth, occasionally getting delayed by a UPS box, business entryways, garbage cans and a pedestrian's ankle. One of the techniques to staying aligned on the sidewalk is to listen carefully to traffic.

Like a blind or visually impaired person, the students will have to become proficient in navigation without using their eyes or asking directions. The final test will involve Lockard and the other graduate students being dropped off in downtown Raleigh and told to navigate their way to a destination.