About

The gift of sight is a wonderful thing, but not everyone has the ability to see as clearly as many of us do. Over 2 million people in the UK live with loss of sight, and for them simple tasks like navigating streets and going on hikes can be difficult and potentially dangerous. The current solution for many of these people is to use a guide dog for navigation, and though immensely adorable these animals cost an estimated £50,000 over the course of their life, money that is not even subsidised by the government. Our solution: GuiDrones, an interfaces for navigating hazardous areas powered by cutting edge machine learning algorithms. We admit that the current technology is not necessarily a replacement for guide dogs, but rather a way for those with less sever loss of sight to experience the same or even greater guidance for a much lower cost. GuiDrones provides audio-tactile feedback about potential hazards from a simple smartphone application. Utilising currently available consumer drone technology, we are able to monitor a subject from a previously unattainable hyper-aware perspective, and raise awareness to the user of immediate hazards such as oncoming bikes and cars. We also plan to implement future hiking features, that could survey immediate surrounding area and inform on a potentially safer path for the user to cross that avoids obstacles such as jagged rocks and rivers.

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