Biped smart harness uses self-driving car technology to help visually impaired people

Biped’s smart harness is built to help visually impaired people avoid obstacles on road. The company has introduced a smart shoulder-worn harness that uses self-driving automobile technology to guide blind and partially-sighted people with 3D sounds to walk on streets.

Biped is a Switzerland-based Start-up company that has developed this AI-co-pilot device for visually impaired people also called Biped harness.

Biped has wide-angle cameras attached to its shoulder working just like a “pedestrian-level self-driving car” and it also produces “intuitive 3D sounds to warn” the visually impaired person about road obstacles. Biped is also compacted with a GPS instruction system, delivering speech via headphones.

According to a source, Biped has a 3D camera and a monitor with 170-degree field vision which helps the device track the trajectories of the surrounding elements within just a few seconds of advancement.

Biped’s CEO and co-founder Mael Fabien has said in a statement, “This mirrors the way autonomous vehicles work. Biped will, for example, warn a user about a bike 12 meters ahead on the user’s trajectory, but ignores an object that is closer but with no collision risk.”

According to reports, Fabien has met Bruno Vollmer another co-founder of the Swiss start-up company at the International Create Challenge hackathon in Switzerland. They together formed Biped in January 2021.

Fabien has also said during the release of Biped, “I was both inspired by my research and by working next to the main ophthalmic hospital in Lausanne. Every day I would encounter blind and visually impaired people and wondered if we could go beyond sticks and guide-dogs to help them.”

Fabien also stated that his company has worked extensively on trials to monitor the user-friendliness of the device. The smart harness is only 1 kg and is made from lightweight material. It has no strap or clip for fastening. It also gives out the swift transmission of signals without interruption.

Fabien also added that they will be launching this product first in Switzerland in Q2 and then in the US by 2023.