PFI-TT: A Novel Device for Improved Mobility for Blinds and Persons with Visual Impairment

该创新-技术翻译合作伙伴关系（PFI-TT）项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力将大大改善美国800多万盲人和视力障碍者的行动能力。由于这个社区有70%的人失业，大多数人没有上大学，除了目前简单的设备或经济上令人望而却步的服务之外，任何可以提高他们在没有人类帮助的情况下驾驭外部世界的能力的设备都将增加他们的流动性，自由和独立性。她们更多地加入劳动力队伍，提高了她们的生活质量和总体经济基础。所提出的设备提供有关环境的听觉信息，使他们能够更安全和自信地导航未知环境。我们的原型的持续开发将提供更多的客户发现和技术改进，以生产实用的最终设备，并提供足够的边际效用，供希望增加机会的BPV个人采用。根据NSF I-Corps团队计划进行的先前客户发现表明，拟议的产品可以达到显着的市场采用率。拟议的项目将推进负担得起的有效设备的开发，以帮助提高BPVI社区的机动性。该设备使用一种新颖的方式，将人工智能（AI）和人类助手相结合，为BPV个体提供有用的指导信息。具体而言，当AI引擎高度自信时，嵌入设备中的协议利用AI将捕获的图像信息转换为听觉指导，并且如果捕获的信息对于AI组件不明确，则自动寻求护理人员的帮助。除了这个核心协议外，该项目还将开发一系列支持技术，使设备更加用户友好，这对设备的广泛采用至关重要。这些工程工作包括：减轻设备的重量，使其易于携带，将新设备与现有设备（如白色手杖）集成，使其无缝采用，延长电池寿命，以满足正常使用的要求，并控制成本。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力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 Partnerships for Innovation - Technology Translation (PFI-TT) project will lead to significant improvement in the mobility of over eight million Blinds and Persons with Visual Impairment (BPVI) in the United States. As seventy percent of this community is unemployed, and the majority do not attend college, any device beyond the current simple devices or financially prohibitive services, that can improve their ability to navigate the outside world without human assistance will increase their mobility, freedom, and independence. Their increased participation in the labor force improves their quality of life and the overall economic base. The proposed device provides auditory information about the environment allowing them to navigate unknown environments with more safety and confidence. Continuing development of our prototype will afford additional customer discovery and technical refinement to produce a final device that is practical and provide sufficient marginal utility for adoption by BPV individuals that desire to increase their opportunity. The previous customer discovery undertaken under the NSF I-Corps Team program suggests that the proposed product could reach a significant market adoption rate.The proposed project will advance the development of affordable yet effective equipment to help to improve the mobility of the BPVI community. The device uses a novel way that combines both artificial intelligence (AI) and human helpers to provide useful guidance information for BPV individuals. Specifically, the protocol embedded in the device leverages AI to convert captured image information to auditory guidance when the AI engine is highly confident and automatically seeks help from a caregiver if the captured information is ambiguous for the AI component. Besides this core protocol, the project will develop a series of supporting technologies to make the device more user-friendly, which are critical for its wide adoption. These engineering efforts include: reducing the weight of the device to make it easy to carry, integrating the new device with existing equipment like a white cane to make the adoption seamless, extending battery life to meet the requirement of normal use, and controlling the cost.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.