SBIR Phase I: Haptic tactile display

该项目更广泛的影响/商业潜力包括为视障人士提供一种通过触觉理解信息的新方法。为了实现这一目标，该公司正在制造微型执行器和刷新显示器，使盲人能够快速理解视觉信息。 一个主要的潜在社会效益将直接关系到视力受损者和盲人，他们在学习几何、代数和微积分以及其他视觉学科方面有明显的困难。 触觉模拟？设备旨在通过以快速刷新的触觉方式表示形状/形式来帮助他们理解这些概念，从而帮助克服学习障碍。此外，商业上的成功将是生产和销售这些设备（针对不同的细分市场）。 Tactile Analogics预计，37%的美国盲人学生，90%的盲人教育中心，40%的博物馆和7%的盲人成年人将其用作工作工具。在与夏普的合作中，Tactile Analogics还将探索嵌入微型阀的功能性数字显示器，市场将扩大，通过视觉和触觉手段为移动的用户提供触觉体验。该公司预计在生产的第五年后将产生超过2亿美元的收入。 这个小企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目正在解决视障人士不仅要学习，还要理解图像和视觉信息的问题，这对他们的日常生活质量产生了影响。 目前生产一个单一的固定打印页面的成本约为20美元每页，需要大约2周的准备和打印。 触觉模拟？设备将提供高达每秒30次的快速刷新速度，允许根据它们所代表的图像创建帧。 这种解决方案将使盲人不依赖于别针纸来理解图像或形状。一般来说，这是一种触觉方式来检索信息，技术上并不限于盲人。 这个机会与提供一种不需要视力的新型信息检索有关。 研究目标是克服我们成熟的微阀技术的设计问题，其中Tactile Analogics将能够为15 cm × 20 cm（2700个气动阀）提供标准平板尺寸的显示器。 此外，气室和信息转换致动器操纵是需要克服的另外两个问题。 预期的结果是不仅分配2700个气动微型阀，而且还分配给更大的显示器。 一旦该技术得到验证，它将允许跨多个行业的各种应用，并有可能创建许多商业上成功的产品线。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this project consists of providing a new means for visually impaired people to understand information via haptics. In order to accomplish this, the company is creating micro actuators and refreshing displays that will permit the blind to understand visual information quickly. One major potential societal benefit will be directly related to visually impaired people and blind, who have a marked difficulty in learning geometry, algebra and calculus, and other visual disciplines. Tactile Analogics? devices are intended to help them to understand such concepts by representing shapes/ forms in a fast-refreshing tactile way, helping to overcome that learning obstacle. Furthermore, the commercial success will be in producing and selling such devices (for different market sub-segments). Tactile Analogics expects market adoption of 37% of USA blind students, 90% of blind educational centers, 40% of museums, and 7% of blind adults to use it in as a working tool. In collaboration with Sharp, Tactile Analogics will explore also a functional digital display with micro-valves embedded, the market will widen to give haptics experience to mobile users in a 2-sense data outputs via sight and tactile means. The company expects to generate revenues of over $200m after year five of production. This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is attacking the problem that visually impaired people have to not just learn, but to understand images and visual information, with impacts on their quality of daily life. Current cost of producing a single pinned printed page is about $20 USD per page and takes about 2 weeks to prepare and print. Tactile Analogics? devices will offer a rapid fast-refreshing speed of up to 30 times per second, allowing the creation of frames according to the image that they are representing. This solution will enable blind to not depend on pinned paper to understand images or shapes. In general, this is a haptic way to retrieve information and technically not limited to blind people. The opportunity is related with providing a new type of information retrieval where sight is not needed. The research objectives are to overcome design problems of our proven technology of micro-valves, where Tactile Analogics would be able to offer a standard tablet-size display for an area of 15cm by 20cm (2700 pneumatic valves). Furthermore, the air chamber and the information conversion-actuator manipulation are two other problems to overcome. The anticipated results are the allocation of not just the 2700 pneumatic micro-valves, but also even for larger displays. Once the technology is proven, it will allow a variety of applications across multiple industries, with the possibility of creating many commercially successful product lines.