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哑人用他们社区的母语（在美国是美国手语或ASL）说话，同时获得无线电话革命所带来的自由、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，可以使用实时视频的手机，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正在进行的MobileASL工作的目标是开发和评估为压缩ASL视频量身定制的低带宽、高保真、容错和低复杂性的软件视频编码器；要取得这样的进步，需要对聋人进行新颖的实验室和实地研究。当前项目的具体目标有四个方面：对MobileASL编解码器进行改进，包括手持捕获视频的综合稳定和压缩算法、减少数据包丢失技术和进一步降低复杂性；通过实验室研究pi的ASL编解码器的特征，包括兴趣区域编码、可变帧率编码、低复杂度编码和ASL特定的错误隐藏策略，确定理想的默认设置和理想的编码选项；在聋人社区使用手机进行一项扩展的实地研究。更广泛的影响：在手机革命之外，美国大约有50万使用美国手语的聋哑人。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相互交谈。这个项目将通过给聋人社区带来移动的美国手语交流来改变这种情况。通过将聋人社区的意见纳入系统设计的各个方面，pi将有助于确保美国手语视频手机能够渗透到聋人社区。通过聘请聋人本科生作为暑期研究实习生，这些学生将受到启发，继续他们的研究事业，并寻求更高的学位。实时视频手机对于希望在移动环境中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.