SBIR Phase I: Development of a Multimodal Interface for improving independence of Blind and Visually-Impaired people

该项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力将是促进数百万盲人和视障人士（BVI）的赋权，使他们能够更大程度地独立，支持提高教育程度，增加职业机会，并提高他们的整体生活质量。目前还没有商业解决方案为英属维尔京群岛用户提供辅助技术（AT）解决方案，使英属维尔京群岛用户能够通过统一的系统无缝地访问文本和图形信息。为了实现这一更大的目标，第一阶段的SBIR项目解决了与创建Midlina核心算法的技术可行性和功能可行性相关的关键挑战，证明BVI用户将在其应用中找到实际用途。通过提供一个急需的AT解决方案，利用触摸屏设备，如智能手机作为平台（已经超过80%的英属维尔京群岛用户拥有和使用），该项目在商业化时具有很高的用户采用和市场接受概率。鉴于由于迅速老龄化的人口所患的与年龄有关的眼疾，视力丧失预计在今后20年内将增加一倍，该项目将为向英属维尔京群岛和老龄化人口提供支助服务的州/联邦机构带来重大经济效益。这项小企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目将展示一种名为Midlina的新型触摸屏信息获取软件，该软件将使盲人和视障人士能够独立地从数字媒体中获取文本和图形信息。提出的解决方案的关键创新和优势在于，它能够通过集成基于智能触摸屏的设备（英属维尔京群岛用户中增长最快的计算平台）上使用的本地移动操作系统（OS），实现无缝文本和图形信息访问的融合。该项目建立在强大的理论基础上，这些理论基础来自于美国国家科学基金会（nsf）资助的为期5年的学术研究，涉及数百名人类测试者，代表了一条通往商业化的绝佳转化之路。驱动第一阶段项目的两个目标是：(1)开发一种新的视觉到多模态转换算法，该算法与本地移动操作系统无缝集成；(2)通过严格的人类用户测试建立原型系统的技术可行性和实际可用性。第一阶段项目的成功成果将导致：(1)开发一种名为Midlina的新型触摸屏信息访问软件的核心算法；(2)证明Midlina将使英属维尔京群岛人民能够独立访问数字媒体中的文本和图形内容的可行性。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 project will be to promote empowerment of millions of blind and visually-impaired (BVI) people by enabling greater independence, supporting increased educational attainment, proliferation of vocational opportunities, and enhancing their overall quality of life. There are currently no commercial solutions for providing BVI users with an assistive technology (AT) solution that allows BVI users to seamlessly access textual and graphical information via a unified system. Towards meeting this greater goal, this Phase I SBIR project addresses key challenges relating to technical feasibility in creating the core algorithms of Midlina and the functional viability proving that BVI users will find practical utility in its application. By providing a much-needed AT solution leveraging touchscreen devices such as smart phones as a platform (which is already owned and used by more than 80% of BVI users), this project has a high probability of user adoption and market acceptance when commercialized. Given that vision loss is expected to double in the next 20 years owing to age-related eye diseases experienced by the rapidly aging population, this project will have significant economic benefits for the State/Federal agencies providing support services to BVI and aging population.This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will show that a novel touchscreen-based information access software, called Midlina, will allow blind and visually-impaired (BVI) individuals to independently access textual and graphical information from digital media. The key innovation and strength of the proposed solution is in its ability to achieve this convergence of seamless text and graphical information access by integrating with native mobile operating systems (OS) used on smart touchscreen-based devices, the fastest growing computational platforms among BVI users. This project builds on strong theoretical underpinnings derived from 5-years of NSF-sponsored academic research involving hundreds of human testers and represents an excellent translational path towards commercialization. Two objectives will drive this Phase I project: (1) Developing a novel visual-to-multimodal conversion algorithm that is seamlessly integrated with a native mobile operating system, and (2) Establishing technical feasibility and practical usability of a prototype system through rigorous human user testing. A successful outcome of this Phase I project would lead to: (1) development of core algorithms for a novel touchscreen-based information access software, called Midlina, and (2) demonstrate feasibility that Midlina will enable BVI people to independently access both textual and graphical contents from digital media.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.