The Instituto de Biomecánica de Valencia (IBV) will take part in the BLINDTRACK European project meeting that will be held in Brussels next 15 December. .
The aim of the BLINDTRACK project is to develop a running facility embedded to a 400m athletic track for visually impaired people to run without another person's assistance. Equal access to services and public places is now required by law in many countries. Jogging, running is certified to have positive effects on mental and physical health conditions of people so thus visually impaired sportsmen. With BLINDTRACK the Consortium aims to raise the level of accessibility of visually impaired to sport to reflect the need for an effective assistive technology which would facilitate the well-being of visually impaired while decreasing their exclusion from sport and leisure activities. It also facilitates industry to be able to better meet anti-discrimination legislation.
BLINDTRACK will be able to bring a significant change in training opportunities of visually impaired. Our aim is to increase the number of blind and partially sighted athletes with the creation of a tailored infrastructural facility that can be the first step to train without sighted helpers. The technology will be detailed later on but in a nutshell its main point is the real-time tracking that is able to give immediate information of and for the runner with the use of the accurate localisation system and the tactile belt worn by the athlete.
The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement n° 605821.