HCC-Small: Mobile ASL: Providing Mobile Video Communications to the Deaf Community Through User-Centered Design and Deployment

具有视频功能的手机有可能使聋人能够用他们社区的母语（在美国是美国手语或ASL）说话，同时获得无线电话革命所提供的自由，灵活性和舒适性。 在日本和欧洲部分地区，基于更高带宽的手机技术，可以使用实时视频手机，这些国家的聋人已经开始使用这些设备相互交流。 然而，在美国，提供具有实时视频功能的手机仍然是一个重大的科学和技术挑战。 PI在其正在进行的MobileASL工作中的目标是开发和评估低带宽，高保真，容错和低复杂度的软件视频编码器，这些编码器专为压缩ASL视频而设计;实现这些进步需要对聋人进行新颖的实验室和现场研究。 当前项目的具体目标有四个方面：实施MobileASL编解码器的改进，包括用于手持捕获视频的组合稳定和压缩算法，包丢失缓解技术，以及进一步降低复杂性;为了完成ASL编解码器在手机上的实时实现，为了通过对PI的ASL编解码器的特征（包括感兴趣区域编码、可变帧速率编码）的实验室研究来确定用于编码的理想默认设置和期望选项，较低的复杂性编码，和ASL特定的错误隐藏策略;在聋人社区部署手机进行扩展的实地研究。 更广泛的影响：被排除在手机革命之外的是美国大约50万使用美国手语的聋人。这个社区已经接受了支持互联网的视频电话技术，但仍然不能用他们的自然语言在手机上互相交谈。 该项目将通过将移动的手语通信引入聋人社区来纠正这种情况。 通过将聋人社区的投入纳入系统的各个方面的设计，PI将有助于确保ASL视频手机将渗透到聋人社区。 通过雇用聋人本科生作为暑期研究实习生，这些学生将受到启发，继续他们的研究生涯，并寻求更高的学位。 具有实时视频功能的手机对于希望在移动的环境中进行面对面交流的普通人群也很有用。

Video-enabled cell phones have the potential to enable Deaf people to speak in their community's native language (which in the United States is American Sign Language or ASL), while gaining the freedom, flexibility, and comfort afforded by the wireless phone revolution. Real-time video-enabled cell phones are available in Japan and parts of Europe based on higher bandwidth cell phone technology, and Deaf people in those countries have already begun using these devices to communicate with each other. In the United States, however, it remains a major scientific and technical challenge to provide real-time video-enabled cell phones. The PIs' goal in their ongoing MobileASL effort has been to develop and evaluate low bandwidth, high fidelity, error-resilient, and low complexity software video encoders that are tailored for compressing ASL video; achieving such advances requires novel laboratory and field studies with Deaf individuals. The specific objectives of the current project are four fold: To implement improvements to the MobileASL codec including combined stabilization and compression algorithms for hand-held captured video, packet loss mitigation techniques, and further complexity reduction; To finalize the real-time implementation of the ASL codec on cell phones, To determine ideal default setting and desirable options for encoding through laboratory studies of the features of the PIs' ASL codec including region-of-interest coding, variable frame rate encoding, lower complexity encoding, and ASL-specific error concealment strategies; To conduct an extended field study with deployed cell phones in the Deaf community. Broader Impacts: Left out of the cell phone revolution are the approximately 500,000 Deaf people in the United States who use ASL. This community has embraced Internet-enabled video phone technology, but still cannot speak with each other on cell phones in their natural language. This project will rectify that situation, by bringing mobile ASL communication to the Deaf community. By incorporating the Deaf community's input into the design of all aspects of the system, the PIs will help ensure that the ASL video cell phones will penetrate the Deaf community. By employing Deaf undergraduates as summer research interns, these students will be inspired to continue their research careers and seek higher degrees. Real-time video-enabled cell phones will also be useful for the general population who wish to communicate face-to-face in a mobile environment.