Beyond Self Driving Cars: Technologies for Autonomous Human Navigation

<p class="p1">This podcast is about big ideas on how technology is making life better for people with vision loss.</p> <p class="p1">Today’s big idea is about exciting and emerging technologies that will someday allow people who are blind or visually impaired to navigate fully autonomously. In this episode, you will meet Jason Eichenholz, the Co-Founder and CTO of Luminar, and his manufacturing engineer, Nico Gentry. Luminar’s LIDAR technology is instrumental to the development of self-driving cars, but this same technology could be useful for people who are blind or visually impaired, who also have to navigate autonomously. You’ll hear from Thomas Panek, the President and CEO of Guiding Eyes for the Blind, an avid runner who dreamed of running on his own. He took this unmet need to a Google Hackathon and Ryan Burke, the Creative Producer at Google Creative Lab put together a team to develop a solution that turned into Project Guideline. Kevin Yoo, Co-Founder of WearWorks Technology is using inclusive design to develop Wayband, a navigation wristband that communicates directions with users via haptics.</p> <p class="p2"> </p> <p class="p1"><strong>The Big Takeaways:</strong></p> <ul class="ul1"> <li class="li1">Since LIDAR uses a shorter wavelength of light than other sensing technologies it creates the most nuanced image, but unlike a camera, LIDAR also measures the distance to each element in the landscape, making it perfect for self-driving cars. And the fact that LIDAR sensors have gotten better and cheaper for self-driving cars has made them available as well for technologies that help people who are blind and visually impaired. LIDAR’s Jason Eichenholz and his engineer, Nico Gentry; who is visually impaired; dive deep into the broad benefits of<span class= "Apple-converted-space"> </span> LIDAR for self-driving cars and for autonomously navigating people.</li> <li class="li1">As an avid runner who is visually impaired, Thomas Panek, President and CEO of Guiding Eyes for the Blind, decided to take matters in