PENNSYLVANIA Walking stick uses lasers to detect obstacles for blind

The device was developed by an Iraqi native who spent years working on it.
PAOLI, Pa. (AP) -- People who are blind and others whose sight is severely impaired often walk with a cane, guide dog or both firmly in tow.
But what happens when an overhanging tree branch looms, or a curb, or a suburban transit platform?
Unexpected dangers often cause accidents in the dark world of the unsighted.
Nazir A. Ali has an alternative.
The 57-year-old Iraqi native has spent most of his professional life developing the one-pound LaserCane, an aluminum stick whose laser beams detect obstacles up to 12 feet ahead and send out different audio tones that its users must learn to recognize.
Ali founded his Chester County company, Nurion-Raycal, to market and sell the LaserCane as well as two other products whose embedded lasers are meant to illuminate the darkness.
The LaserCane sells for less than $3,000; the Polaron, worn around a person's neck, for $900, and the Pathfinder, a wheelchair attachment, for $4,500.
Starting out
After coming here from Iraq in 1964, Ali began working for Bionic Instrument in Bala Cynwyd, where he helped develop an infrared cane at the behest of the U.S. Veterans Administration.
Concerned about the large number of veterans who returned blind from the Korean War, the VA exhorted several instrument companies to develop new tools for the unsighted. Ali later became the cane's chief champion and developer, converting its power to laser.
He formed Nurion in King of Prussia 25 years ago to further develop the technology.
Along the way, Ali and his sole employee, engineer Earl Bennett, have received $150,000 in funding from the state's Ben Franklin Technology Partners and other aid from the Delaware Valley Industrial Resource Center.
The name Nurion comes from "nur," which means "light" in Arabic, and "Orion," the great hunter of Greek mythology who was blinded until having his sight restored by the rising sun. Ali added Raycal, short for radiation calibrations, six years ago.
Once assembled by hand, the cane is made for Nurion-Raycal by two subcontractors, PPI/Time Zero in Paterson, N.J., and Compucraft Fabricators in Montgomeryville. Final assembly is done in Chester County.
Covering some costs
Ali said that a few insurance companies cover at least some of the cost of the LaserCane; preventing injury, after all, is preferable to the treatment and health-care costs that follow a fall or other catastrophic event.
Potentially, the U.S. market for the LaserCane is huge: There are 1.1 million blind people in this country, with 50,000 more new cases every year, according to the National Federation of the Blind.
Blindness occurs most often as people age; in fact, half the blind population in the United States is 65 or older. But a significant number are children or young adults.
Only 1 percent to 2 percent of all blind people use a guide dog today, Ali said.
Nurion-Raycal has sold 400 of the devices so far, which take 10 to 20 hours of instruction to master. A Greek company is in the process of working on a deal to import the canes.
A few guide-dog agencies have ordered the canes, and they appear on various Web sites for several blind organizations.