Le Chal — A Haptic Shoe Designed for the Blind

The last decade has seen a number of creative inventions by visionaries that have revolutionized the way we do our daily routine activities. Anirudh Sharma, a B.Tech graduate from Rajasthan Technical University, seems to be treading the same path. He has developed a unique system called “Le Chal” (Hindi equivalent for “Take Me There”) that helps the visually impaired reach their desired destination with the vibrations that emanate from the Haptic shoe. Not only that, users are also warned of any obstacles that come in their path while walking (even in pothole-marked terrains).

Sharma designed the first prototype of the shoe in January 2011 while attending a Design and Innovation workshop organized by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Pune and subsequently presented his Haptic shoe design during a MIT Media Lab Workshop hosted at College of Engineering, Pune.

The Components:

Le Chal Haptic shoe contains an Arduino LilyPad which is the main circuit board and is placed at the back mid-sole region of the shoe. Four mini vibration motors are placed – one each at the front, back, left and right to inform the user about the directions. It also contains an Android app that is connected with Arduino LilyPad via Bluetooth. A proximity sensor is integrated in the system as well, which warns the user of obstacles up to 10 feet away.

How It Works:

The user speaks his final destination on Google Maps before starting his journey through the Le Chal app on his android smartphone. The phone converts the speech into text and communicates with the Lilypad Arduino via Blueooth. The maps data from Google maps is fetched and turn by turn directions to the destination are loaded within the shoe.
When the user starts his journey, the GPS coordinates and his heading direction are calculated by a compass within the GPS module and changed accordingly. The vibration mechanism indicating the direction of turn is activated within the shoe. The strength of the vibration depends upon the overall proximity from the destination, which means that the vibrations are weak in the beginning but gradually become stronger at the end of the navigation task. The built-in proximity sensor in the front of the shoe detects any obstacle up to 10 feet (3 meters) away and alerts the user accordingly.

When Will It Hit the Market

Though the shoes have had trials in a Bangalore blind school, there is no information about when Le Chal will be available in the markets. As of now, Anirudh plans to release the code for the app and the schematics for the shoe to public via the Arduino community channel. He is also intent on creating a Do It Yourself (DIY) guide on Wikipedia so that users can participate in the development of Le Chal.