Electronic-automatic orientation device for walkers and the blind

Claim 1

An electronic-automatic orientation device for individuals having a stride and locomoting from a starting point in a predetermined direction, comprising: an earth's magnetic field direction sensor for generating an electrical direction signal according to the direction of an individual's progress; a stride-motion sensor for producing motion signals; An electronic arithmetic unit for receiving the signals from the direction sensor and the stride-motion sensor, an indicator means; said arithmetic unit generating a distance vector from the direction signal and the stride-motion signal, said stride-motion sensor having an electromechanical stride-motion converter for producing stride-counting pulses, said electronic arithmetic unit, when triggered by a stride-counting pulse, generating a stride vector proportional to a respective stride length, said stride vectors being continually summed to a resulting distance vector, the resulting distance vector having a value shown by said indicator means indicating a mementary distance to the starting point, a momentary opposite direction (ψ-180°) of the resulting distance vector being given by said indicator means to indicate the momentary direction toward the starting point; an electronic memory for storage of one or more distance vectors calculated in the said arithmetic unit and one or more memory keys for triggering a storage process of one or more momentary resulting distance vectors in an additional memory, means for resetting the arithmetic unit at a new starting point so that distance vectors from the new starting point have values which are summed and a momentary opposite direction (ψ-180°) of a resulting distance vector back to this new starting point is given by said indicator means, one or more memory recall keys being effective, upon reaching the new starting point, to recall the resulting distance vector stored at the previous starting point for transfer from said additional memory to said digital arithmetic unit whereby the momentary opposite direction (ψ-180°) of said stored resulting distance vector back to the previous starting point is given by said indicating means.