With the use of haptic technology, an ordinary wheelchair is given the ability to ’see or feel’ by a team of researchers at the Luleå University of Technology. This electric wheelchair is able to sense its surroundings and transmits information to a person who is visually impaired. This is achieved by the use of SenseGraphics H3DAPI platform, a haptic robot to serve as a virtual walking cane, 3D laser scanner, and a joystick for navigation. The 3D map created by the laser scanner is transmitted to the haptic platform, which creates the virtual touch environment and feeds this information back to its user via the haptic device.
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