Innovation in Micro Actuators and Big Data Technology Transform Visually Impaired Daily Life Activities and Improve Their Access to Information Technology Resources

Abstract

It is indeed very alarming when we learn that every five seconds one person in the world goes blind. 285 million people are visually impaired worldwide. 39 million are blind and 246 have low vision, 90% of the world's visually impaired live in developing countries. This blind and visually impaired community Tactile and Braille is the most efficient possible way to read, write and interact with latest information technology resources. There are many outstanding efforts have been done on previous decades to improve this community quality of life. This paper presents the current state of the art of the current micro actuators technology and its latest development for visually impaired information technology access application. It is also presents innovative tactile graphical display using electro rheological fluid micro actuators for the visually impaired people information technology (IT) access application. The display consists of 124x4 dots. Each dot is a micro electro rheological fluid actuator. The micro-actuator is designed based on linear vertical movement principles. An advanced software tools and embedded system based on voltage matrix manipulation are developed, to provide the graphical display near real time control. The actuator design and development process and software control tools is presented in this paper. Prototype size 124x4 dots, on a matrix form, of 2.54mm pitch, was manufactured. The experimental tests carried out into the prototype showed a close agreement with the standard criteria of Tactile Braille applications. The stroke and dynamic time response test showed the practicability of the developed graphical tactile display, for visually impaired IT access applications.