Outsight and CentraleSupelec partner to create a 3D LiDAR navigation system for visually impaired people

This year, Outsight, the leader in LiDAR software solutions, invited students from CentraleSupelec, one of the best French engineering schools, to develop a LiDAR-based navigation system for visually impaired people.

LiDAR is a 3D sensor, like an enhanced camera with depth information. LiDARs, unlike 2D cameras, are not able to "see" colors, but they are able to gather precise information about the size, shape, volume, and speed of objects from hundreds of meters away.

In the last two years, this technology has made significant strides in terms of performance, cost, range, size, and weight, as well as becoming increasingly affordable.

One can even find a LiDAR sensor today that weighs less than 100 g, meaning that these sensors have become small and light enough so one can wear them.

Furthermore, there are now LiDAR software solutions available, such as the one from Outsight, that can quickly preprocess LiDAR’s raw data to generate actionable information and enable limitless applications.

Because of these advancements, a LiDAR-based, people-oriented navigation system is now achievable.

Project Goal

The objective of the project is to create a LiDAR-based, people-oriented 3D navigation system.

It will leverage 3D real-time perception data from LIDAR sensors to give visually impaired people a unique approach to moving autonomously and collecting 3D information about their present location and surroundings over broad outdoor regions such as a campus.

At first, students are expected to conduct research on the most recent, state-of-the-art projects to better comprehend the needs and solutions available.

In a second step, they will need to design a mobile platform as simple as possible (i.e., define LiDAR hosting, how to use the Augmented LiDAR Box, how to set up the power supply, and so on).

Finally, they will start making the navigation solution, which will have multiple releases over the course of the project.

This software should compute the LiDAR-processed data and output navigation instructions.

These navigation instructions will be sent to a guidance system that provides feedback to the user.

?At the end of the project, the teams will show a working proof of concept, and they will compete against a team from Berkeley University in an international competition organized by Outsight.

About us

Outsight’s team has been pioneering 3D sensing software for 18 years, with more than 73 patents filed and 21 granted.

Outsight's mission is to make LiDAR-based Spatial Intelligence become Plug & Play, so it can be used by developers of applications, in any market.

We developed the Augmented LiDAR Software, the industry's first software pre-processor for 3D data, which performs all the essential features required to integrate LiDAR into any project (3D SLAM, Object Detection and Tracking, Segmentation and Classification). With any LiDAR.

Our international team of scientists and engineers operates out of Paris, Nice, and San Francisco.

We believe that accelerating the adoption of LiDAR technology through simple and scalable pre-processing will significantly contribute to the emergence of transformative solutions that will result in a smarter, safer world.