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

这一创新-技术转化伙伴关系(PFI-TT)项目的广泛影响/商业潜力将显著改善美国800多万盲人和视障人士(BPVI)的行动能力。由于这个社区70%的人失业，而且大多数人没有上过大学，除了目前简单的设备或经济上令人望而却步的服务之外，任何能够提高他们在没有人类帮助的情况下导航外部世界的能力的设备都将增加他们的机动性、自由度和独立性。他们更多地加入劳动力大军，改善了他们的生活质量和整体经济基础。建议的设备提供关于环境的听觉信息，使他们能够更安全、更自信地在未知环境中导航。我们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，并为希望增加机会的BPV个人提供足够的边际效用。之前在NSF I-Corps团队计划下进行的客户发现表明，建议的产品可能会达到相当大的市场采用率。建议的项目将推动负担得起但有效的设备的开发，以帮助提高BPVI社区的移动性。该设备使用了一种新颖的方式，将人工智能(AI)和人类助手结合在一起，为BPV患者提供有用的指导信息。具体地说，当AI引擎高度自信时，嵌入在设备中的协议利用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组件来说是模棱两可的，则自动向护理人员寻求帮助。除了这一核心协议外，该项目还将开发一系列支持技术，使该设备更加用户友好，这对其广泛采用至关重要。这些工程努力包括：减轻设备的重量使其易于携带，将新设备与白手杖等现有设备整合以实现无缝采用，延长电池寿命以满足正常使用的要求，以及控制成本。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势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.