Today is an exciting day as we were able to test our first prototype of our Ultra Wideband hardware that will help guide the blind and visually impaired to their Autonomous Vehicle, rideshare vehicle, or any vehicle for that matter. The initial data results are looking good. Our distance measurements are spot on with what we anticipated. Our measurements of angle to determine which direction a vehicle is in still needs some work, but that is what is expected with an initial prototype. It’s our belief that some simple firmware modifications will increase the angle accuracy. A lot of time, effort, and money has been put into getting to this point, and Team FAR is beyond excited to reach this milestone in this phase of the Department of Transportation’s Inclusive Design Challenge.
Some other items will be posted soon regarding our finalization of our focus groups, and an exciting outcome of our focus groups that has resulted in FAR sponsoring a senior class project of Industrial Design and Mechanical Engineering students at The Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech), a top 10 public research university. A lot going on with a lot of excitement about what we are creating!