The National Federation of the Blind and Virginia Tech have demonstrated a prototype of a vehicle with technology said to enable a blind person to independently operate a car. Sensors allow the blind driver to maneuver their car based on information about the surroundings.

Virginia Tech entered a driverless vehicle into the 2007 DARPA Grand Challenge, a contest run and funded by the research arm of the Defense Department. Multiple “nonvisual interfaces” are employed; one for instance, works off of vibrations sent to the driver via special gloves, and another uses puffs of air to create a virtual map of the driver’s surroundings.