SBIR-STTR Award

New innovative technology for the visually impaired has been developed by NIST. If commercialized, it would provide refreshable tactile graphical information to the visually impaired, enabling them to compete on a more equal footing in the workplace and the education system. Currently, accessing graphical tactile information is expensive and cumbersome. This is a huge impediment for the visually impaired as graphical information is a core asset in the computer age " conveying essential complex information efficiently. The research team will advance the NIST display technology by improving its pin density, screen size, refresh rates, reset mechanisms and user interface. Phase 1 efforts will result in designs and prototypes of key components of the display " including the pins, locking mechanisms, and linear actuation arrays. The researchers will approach the R&D by 1) evaluating existing and potential applicable technologies, 2) designing and/or integrating those technologies that meet project requirements, 3) analyzing potential integrations, 4) prototyping the most efficient integrations and 5) producing a comprehensive design strategy document that delineates both the progress of the Phase 1 research and the research plan for the Phase 2 efforts. COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS: The research findings will lead to a low-cost device capable of presenting information in two-dimensional graphical form. Commercial applications for the device include presenting tactile text and graphics for the visually impaired, thereby enabling the visually impaired to compete more effectively in our economy. The device could also be modified to present other tactile graphical information for varied industries. For example, it could represent three-dimensional maps of our plant’s and other planets’ surfaces (and below), for use by natural resource companies, infrastructure and construction projects, the military and space exploration

This is an SBIR Phase II proposal to develop a tactile refreshable computer display prototype (TRCD) that will support multiple tactile alphabets (e.g. ELIA, braille, and Roman), multiple lines of text, and graphics to benefit the more than 1.8 million blind Americans. Commercially available TRCDs are expensive (~$12,000, or $19 per actuator), provide only one line of text (with 640 actuators) and don’t support tactile graphics. The researchers will develop an advanced prototype based on the patented NIST technology, using new technological approaches. This technology will support a TRCD with as many as 10,000 actuators at a cost of less than $1/ actuator. The researchers anticipate they can create a faster, more efficient prototype, addressing the commercial viability concerns of NIST’s current tactile image display prototype. COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS: If the technology were commercialized, the access to its graphical information would enable the blind to compete on a more equal footing in the workplace and educational systems. It would also support new innovative assistive technology (the ELIA® Tactile Alphabet) to serve the 97% of the 1.8 million blind people who cannot read braille, as well as braille users. The company believes the blind person market would demand several thousand TRCDs per year