In some locations, individuals who are legally blind are able to drive with a visual aid. One of the potential visual aids includes having a display screen to present additional information to the driver to assist them with finding streets and other traffic instruction. One of the implementations of this for older vehicles without a screen includes connecting a phone running Android Auto with a Raspberry Pi and using its official display screen to serve as a touch screen where information is present. We used an open-source implementation to connect the phone with the Raspberry Pi called Crankshaft. A recent Google Play Service update in January broke the connection necessary between the Pi and the phone (https://github.com/opencardev/crankshaft/issues/304), creating an issue with the connections between the two devices. The project worked on fixing the connection issue, as well as adding additional functionalities to the Crankshaft project to assist legally blind drivers.
We built on Crankshaft's existing framework to add additional features using a previously created UI with brainstormed features.
The project group built an implementation that patched the issue with google play services update. The team also created a proof-of-concept for implementing rear-view/side-facing cameras, displaying a connected camera on the screen to aid drivers when turning or backing up, as well as implementation for adjusting the brightness of the screen based on input from a light sensor. We are still looking at additional features that we can implement to further improve the ease of use for all drivers to benefit from.
What we accomplished:
- Fixed the crankshaft auto bug to make the UI compatible with the latest version of Android
- Integrated a camera system which triggers automatically on turns and reverse, giving a view of the blind-spots and aiding in driving
- Brightness system which functions on surrounding lightings
The problems we faced along the road (or nights, exactly)
- The project revolves around fixing the bug that exists on the crankshaft UI for Raspberry Pi; problems being finding the bug and integrating it with Google Play Services.
- The camera system must trigger automatically. Enabling auto trigger and turn-off, was the major problem from the coding aspect
- Light system brightness changes variably based on surrounding lighting. Integrating screen brightness to match the surrounding was a tedious task faced by the group.
Prizes
The Very Hungry Caterpillar -: We believe that our project is an assistive technology that allows everyone, especially visually impaired drivers to drive safer and better with features like adjustive brightness, camera views, and others described above.
The Big Fish -: This project uses car head units in a cheap solution allowing a feasible and commercially viable solution for a diverse group of people and especially the visually impaired for safer and more confident driving. The device provides an economical solution with the ease of addition of new features.
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