FEEDI - A Smart Wearable Foot-Band for Navigation and Guidance Using Haptic Feedback

In this paper, we introduce the design and implementation of a smart foot bracelet for navigation purposes. The foot-band is meant to be worn right above the ankle. FEEDI, as the wearable shall be called, guides pedestrians to their destination by giving them haptic feedback using four vibration motors.

That way, the user’s attention is freed from any display and audio feedback, making him perceive more of his surroundings. Furthermore, the wearable could have interesting applications in the medical field. One example is guiding visually impaired individuals or helping people improve their general wellbeing with feedback regarding their physical activities. The band is able to record sensory data from an accelerometer, a gyroscope and a magnetometer. This opens the possibility to use that information for activity monitoring with deep learning methods. All code and further resources are available at https://github.com/Spackelter/FEEDI.