Creating New Tactile Sensations for Tactile Aids with Designer Materials

项目摘要 对于盲人来说，像图形或情节这样的视觉辅助工具是不可用的。相反，触觉辅助工具被用来帮助 通过物理特征的排列，如凹凸、线条和纹理，抽象概念。虽然有用， 静态触觉辅助设备不能容易地呈现许多抽象概念， 大量的信息。显示密集、复杂信息的一个关键问题是使用太多行或 小空间中的凸起产生“触觉混乱”，导致用户的混淆和误解。事实上， 触觉辅助设备通过触摸呈现信息的能力实际上是满负荷的。虽然制造成本 随着新兴技术的发展，使用凹凸和纹理图案来渲染的核心技术 通过触摸获得的信息基本上保持不变。目前的大多数研究都没有集中在解决这个问题上 基本的限制，而是通过使用其他感官来回避，比如音频。因此， 在触觉辅助器产生的触觉刺激方面进展甚微，这限制了他们进行复杂 为盲人提供信息。为了解决在静态中创建触觉的方法的缺乏， 触觉辅助工具，这项研究将通过使用“设计师材料”来增加触觉的多样性和密度。 设计师材质，不同于物理特征，如凹凸和线条，是使用现象的表面涂层 从表面化学到控制粘附力和摩擦力，从而产生新的触觉。依靠 在表面化学方面，有可能施加目前不可能的控制和空间分辨率水平。 设计师的材料将与当前的物理特征相结合，以构建下一代阅读器 和更多信息密集的触觉辅助工具。这些触觉辅助工具将在一系列日常活动中得到展示 盲目的科目。该项目结合了我们团队在材料科学，固体力学，人类学， 心理物理学和触觉辅助发展。我们的项目是围绕着发现新的设计师 材料，开发下一代触觉辅助工具，以及触觉辅助工具最佳设计的机械研究。 总之，这些领域使我们能够快速开发新的触觉辅助工具，为设计提供合理的指导方针， 传统和下一代触觉辅助工具，并提供了触觉辅助工具包中急需的扩展 开发者为了最大限度地发挥影响力，该项目的各个方面都涉及与盲人成员的密切合作 社区

PROJECT SUMMARY For blind people, visual aids like a graphic or a plot are not accessible. Instead, tactile aids are used help render abstract concepts through an arrangement of physical features, like bumps, lines, and textures. Although useful, static tactile aids cannot easily render many abstract concepts and still face difficulties when displaying large amounts of information. A key issue with displaying dense, complex information is that using too many lines or bumps in a small space creates “tactile clutter”, leading to confusion and misinterpretation by the user. In fact, the ability of tactile aids to render information by touch is practically at full capacity. While fabrication costs are lowering with emerging technologies, the core technology of using patterns of bumps and textures to render information by touch has largely remained the same. Most current research is not focused on addressing this fundamental limitation and instead sidesteps by using other senses instead, like audio. Therefore, there has been little progress in tactile stimuli generated by a tactile aid, which has limited their ability to make complex information accessible for blind people. To address the lack of methods to create tactile sensations in static tactile aids, this research will increase the variety and density of tactile sensations by using “designer materials”. Designer materials, unlike physical features like bumps and lines, are surface coatings which use phenomena from surface chemistry to control adhesion and friction and thereby generate new tactile sensations. By relying on surface chemistry, it is possible to exert a level of control and spatial resolution not currently possible. Designer materials will be combined with current physical features to build the next generation of easier-to-read and more information dense tactile aids. These tactile aids will be demonstrated in a series of everyday activities with blind subjects. This project combines our team’s expertise in material science, solid mechanics, human psychophysics, and tactile aid development. Our project is centered around the discovery of new designer materials, developing next generation tactile aids, and mechanistic studies into the optimal design of tactile aids. Together, these areas allow us to rapidly iterate new tactile aids, build rationale guidelines for designing traditional and next generation tactile aids, and provides a much-needed expansion in the toolkit for tactile aid developers. To maximize impact, all aspects of the project involve close collaboration with members of the blind community.