Pakistani students develop smart electronic stick for visually-impaired

Pakistani students once again proved that if given chance they could produce outstanding results and this time it was two Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) engineering students, who introduced a digital walking stick named ‘Go Cane’  for visually-impaired persons.

It is not an ordinary stick and allows a blind person to navigate walk, identifying obstacles through sensors and conveying message to the user through vibrations.

Not only that the stick is available on cheap rates, it also has more features than the United Kingdom (UK) electric stick available in the market.

Divulging details of the device at the ARY NEWS Morning programme ‘ Bakhabar Savera’, one of the students, Faiz said they began working on the idea in September 2018 and after over a year-period, they were able to launch it with 23 alterations made in the initial design.

“Initially the size of the stick was three feet but now it is 11 inches and foldable,” he said adding that a visually impaired professor at LUMS helped them in identifying the lacunas in the device.

The student said that the white cane stick, usually used by the visually impaired persons, does not identify the head-up level obstacles likewise hanging rods, branches of trees or signboards. “This device, however, addresses this issue,” he said adding that it has indoor and outdoor mode aimed at increasing and decreasing the sensitivity of the device.

Read More: At least 2.2 billion people have vision impairment or blindness

Although he said that most of the parts used in it are locally available but some of them were purchased from abroad to add water proof feature to the device. “It is more lightweight, affordable than the UK product available in the market,” he said adding that it would initially cost upto Rs 10,000, 90 percent lower than the foreign product.

If charged for five hours, the device could be used upto five days. he said.