Rose-Hulman seniors develop 12-hour wearable hat that alerts blind users to obstacles
A team of five senior engineering students at Rose Hulman Institute of Technology created a battery-powered wearable hat that uses LiDAR-type sensors to warn visually impaired wearers of nearby objects.
Five seniors—Ethan Powell, Anica Cao, Jada Hunter-Hays, Anuj Suvarna and Rhiley Epperson—collaborated with 1983 alumnus John Marum to turn a concept for an assist-on-sight wearable into a functional prototype. Inspired by commercial time-of-flight sensors used in restroom dispensers, Marum envisioned a low-cost, battery-operated aid that does not rely on smartphones or data plans. The team built a baseball-style hat that houses the sensors along the rim and delivers directional haptic feedback through vibrations inside the hat.
Battery life reaches roughly 12 hours, and the system operates entirely offline. Feedback from two blind beta testers and a focus group of residents aged 70 to 99 at a Terre Haute assisted-living facility informed design tweaks, especially regarding vibration intensity for older users. The project, part of the multidisciplinary ECE 460 senior-design course, will be handed to the next cohort for further development, with Marum hoping to move the device toward production.
Why it matters
It offers a low-cost, independent navigation aid for people with visual impairments.
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