Around two million people in United Kingdom are living with some form of visual impairment. As well as using traditional walking sticks or guide dogs, there is now a new design called the Sensei Glove that could benefit blind and partially sighted people to determine their distance from certain object. One of the main advantages of the Sensei Glove is users don’t have to undergo a lot of training before using the product.

The Sensei Glove has an ultrasonic sensor that generates various levels of sound to alert the wearer to solid obstacles in his or her surroundings, which is quite similar to a car’s parker sensor. The ultrasonic sensor is on the back of the glove, and it relies on battery to enable it to emit different levels of sounds to differentiate distance of objects. The vibrations get stronger or weaker depending on the wearer’s proximity to the object being detected, and this allows for safe navigation.

The Sensei Glove was designed by students Raivat Luthura and Serkan Oztas, who won first prize in the inaugural Entrepreneurship and Business Competition run by Nottingham University Business School (NUBS) at The University of Nottingham and Engineers in Business Fellowship (EIBF). The team is also now working on furthering the design of the glove into a fully marketable product.

The main challenge they face is the size of the attachment, thus making a microprocessor smaller and lighter is the direction of the development, which also means the product will be more aesthetically pleasing. A prototype will be developed and refined for presentation to both charities and the NHS, with the hope of moving onto mass production eventually.

Below is a short clip introducing the Sensei Glove:

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