We’ve shown you several cool personal navigation systems (PNS) in the past, but this prototype offers something new as it doesn’t require the user to constantly look at a display. It’s essentially on a pair of glasses that’s equipped with a battery, LEDs, a microcomputer, and a magnetic direction sensor – even though the system (unfortunately) needs more hardware to make it actually work.
All that users need to do is to input the destination on a portable mini computer (the user’s current location is detected via GPS). The main bullet point is the magnetic detection sensor that can detect which way the user is facing. If the user starts walking in a certain direction, the LEDs attached to the glasses light up in green or red, indicating whether it’s the right or wrong direction.
That way, users are guided to their destination without having to look at a display the whole time, which makes this PNS more convenient and less dangerous to use, according to the makers of the navigation system, the Nakajima Lab at the University of Electro-Communications in Tokyo.
Here’s a video (shot by DigInfoNews in Tokyo):