SBIR Phase II: Microfluidic Technology for Full-Page Digital Braille and Tactile Graphics Display

这个小企业创新研究（SBIR）第二阶段项目的更广泛的影响和商业潜力是，通过在类似平板电脑的设备上提供整页可刷新的盲文和触觉图形，减轻美国150万盲人获取信息的负担。这种辅助技术将提供更多的数字形式的盲文，使盲人学生能够用手指阅读数字化的空间内容，包括数学方程、图形和数字，与对科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）领域感兴趣的视力正常的学生不相上下。特别是，带有支持软件的产品将消除课堂学习环境中的协作障碍和工作场所的文档准备障碍。拟议的产品将提高盲文素养，增加进入STEM职业的机会，并最终导致盲人美国人的就业成功和独立。这个小企业创新研究（SBIR）二期项目继续努力采用微流体技术，以创造一种高度可制造的全页盲文和触觉图形显示器，该显示器使用气动信号来驱动盲文间距的插脚。预期的技术创新将某些驱动功能从机电硬件转移到更具成本效益和易于制造的多层微流体基板上。由于这一阶段研究的最终目标是创建一个集成系统，以提供交互式盲文和触觉图形，因此该团队将重点设计交互式体验，使盲人用户能够根据需要访问他们想要的文本和非文本信息。该项目的预期结果是在平板电脑大小的设备中无缝排列驱动引脚，能够呈现半页盲文和触觉图形图像。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project is to reduce the burden of accessing information for the 1.5 million blind people in the United States by making a full page of refreshable braille text and tactile graphics available in a device resembling a tablet computer. This assistive technology will provide increased access to braille in digital form and enable blind students to read, with their fingers, digitized spatial content including mathematical equations, graphs, and figures, creating parity with their sighted counterparts interested in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) fields. In particular, the product with supporting software will remove barriers to collaboration in classroom learning environments and document preparation in the workplace. The proposed product will improve braille literacy, increase opportunities to enter careers in STEM, and ultimately lead to the employment success and independence of blind Americans.This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project continues efforts to adopt microfluidic technology in order to create a highly manufacturable full-page braille and tactile graphics display that uses pneumatic signals to actuate pins at braille spacing. The anticipated technical innovations shift certain drive functions from electromechanical hardware to the more cost effective and easily manufactured multilayered microfluidic substrate. Since the ultimate objective for this phase of research is to create an integrated system for delivering interactive braille and tactile graphics, the team will focus on designing the interactive experience by which blind users access, on demand, the textual and non-textual information that they desire. The anticipated outcome of this project is a seamless array of actuated pins in a tablet­ sized device capable of presenting a half­ page of braille characters and tactile graphic images.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.