Head-mounted LiDAR array that communicates through bone conduction

thingiverse

See the world through dolphin eyes, almost! Dolphins echolocate but they don't hear those pings exactly how we do. Instead, they receive echolocation pings as vibrations in their lower jawbone. Some massive whales use this method too. This raises a question: "What if we could utilize bone-conducting headphones and ultrasonic range finders to mimic that experience?" And DolphinView was born. Ultrasonic rangefinders (the ones readily available for proximity detection) are really short-range, less than half a meter. I swapped those out with a much longer-range time-of-flight LiDAR unit, the kind you might see on a drone to detect and avoid obstacles. Using this LiDAR unit, I created a system that pulses like SONAR as objects get closer. But that's just a proximity alarm. The real trick is sending the signal directly into your brain like a dolphin would. Which brings me to bone-conducting headphones. Instead of tiny speakers sitting in or on your ears, these headphones sit on your temples and send vibrations straight into your inner ear. Functionally, this means you can listen to music or podcasts at any volume and still hear the world around you. For DolphinView, this means you get a continuous pulse that increases or decreases in frequency (frequency of occurrence, not frequency of the pulse tone) as objects get closer. This project was conceived as an educational experience for students to see the world "like a dolphin might." Several individuals have pointed out that it may have utility for the visually impaired. While this is true, it certainly needs more refining before anyone should view this as anything more than a curiosity. Full documentation can be found at the DolphinView GitHub Repository. To support weird and wonderful projects like this, please check out my Patreon.