MEMORANDUM
To: Members And Friends
NFB R&D Committee
From: T. V. Cranmer, Chairman
Subject: Engineers meeting on navagation
Date: April 16, 1994
A section of the IEEE held a conference last week dealing with
"Position Location And Navigation Symposium," PLANS.
I was the conference luncheon speaker.
This was an excellent opportunity to enlist support and active
participation of a community of electronic engineers in the work of
our Committee. That's what I told them, and that's what I believe.
You guys who read the Braille Monitor already know the Federation
views on technology expressed in articles presented at the two
US/Canada conferences under the auspices of the World Blind Union,
chaired by Dr. Kenneth Jernigan and hosted by NFB at the National
Center for the Blind. A good part of my talk at PLANS came from
the papers I contributed to the US/Canada conference, and so won't
be repeated here.
I discussed our need for a tactile pencil--yes I did, and
challenged their ingenuity to find or create the technology to
produce one.
I told them of our infrared protocol proposal and invited their
help. Here is a brief excerpt on that subject:
Begin Quote
Machines with more complex operating systems as well as all
machines available to public use, such as automatic teller
machines, information kiosks and futuristic products spawned by the
Information Super Highway, will require more elaborate provisions
to assure that they can be used by everyone. More elaborate, yes,
but less daunting than the challenges referred to earlier. We
think we know how to make these public machines accessible. We,
the consumers, know what is needed and you, engineers, know how to
do it.
Here is the Scenario:
Every machine intended for public use should have alternative
displays. The visual display for the sighted public and the same
information available via an infrared link (and here is the key) to
be decoded and displayed in a mode of choice of the consumer by his
very own adaptive equipment. Thus we have a two-component system.
The manufacturer of the public machine must be responsible for
including the infrared display on his machines. We will help
establish the communication protocol for the IR transmitter and
consult with these manufacturers on data format requirements that
will make the information on the visual screen interpretable in
braille or synthetic speech.
The second component of this system, producing a hand held device,
to receive and retrieve data on the IR display will be the
responsibility and opportunity for the manufacturers now in or who
choose to join the blindness industry. Descriptions of these
receivers that convert the IR transmissions to braille or
synthetic speech might well be the subject of a full length paper.
NFB will welcome the opportunity to deliver such a paper to any
player in this new market.
End Quote
I'm sure that all of you would be disappointed if I did not tell
this assemblage of learned engineers of our need for a multi-line
braille display as well as a display capable of producing good
graphical information. So, here is another quote:
In engineering terms, our present tools and techniques enable us to
minimally utilize the touch channel to the brain. We are now using
only a tiny portion of the available bandwidth. A few examples
will illustrate this point.
The most readily available and affordable braille displays for use
with computers have only one line of eighteen or twenty braille
characters. Furthermore, many blind people were taught as children
to read braille by touching just one character at a time with a
single fingertip. This is like reading with sight using a pinhole
in a piece of cardboard to peep at the printed page. And when
blind people learn for themselves that they can read much better
using several fingers, the one-line braille displays now available
still force them to read in a manor comparable to the sighted
person peering through a narrow and rather short slit.
The remedy for this situation is quite simple, in theory, though
not yet attainable. We need a large, multi-line computer
controllable braille display that permits reading through the use
of both hands simultaneously.
I referred to the Optacon in a previous context. It is a device
for converting a visual image into a tactile image composed of
patterns of vibrating pins. This is a beautiful technology, but
woefully inadequate for most practical use, because the vibrating
display is so tiny that it can be examined using only one
finger. Again, this is rather like a sighted person using a
pinhole to visually inspect a picture or, if you will, a schematic
diagram.
The solution to this problem, though conceptually simple, is not
now available. We need a large tactile array capable of presenting
a three dimensional tactile image that can be examined by using all
ten fingers and the palms of both hands.
And so, engineers, here is your first challenge: Will you find the
materials and design the transducers that will fill the tactile
bandwidth with information? Can you design a large, multi-line,
computer controlled braille display? Will you design the tactile
panel that is the haptic metaphor for the computer screen?
End quote
This was one of the more interesting meetings that I have attended
in many years. The subjects discussed, and the hardware in the
exhibits area, dealt with GPS receivers of every size and
description, laser ring gyroscopes, accelerometers, and other high
tech thingamabobs in the general category of navigational
instruments. I couldn't help conjuring up the next generation
orientation and mobility aid produced by cobbling together an
assortment of items from the exhibition hall. It was assembled, in
my imagination, in an undersized attache case. The blind guy
traveling out of doors, near home or abroad, could inquire of his
location from the GPS receiver. On the other hand, when he attends
the NFB conventions, his orientation aid would derive its
information from a local map that included all of the details
available from the hotel floor plans and every visual sign posted
in and around the premises. We might as well include the identity
of the tables in the exhibition hall. Believe it or not, putting
this package together would not exceed present technology and
knowledge. But, there's a catch! We do not now have a transducer
to ideally couple the information available in the attache case to
the blind guy carrying it.
Continuous speech, spewing streams of information is unacceptable
for lots of reasons, all well known to every one of you. Braille,
too, won't do as a continuously varying source of information in
the environment of an electronic travel aid. What, then, should be
the output of the ultimate travel aid?
My present view is that it needs to be based on kinesthetic
information and language presented in a wholly intuitive manner.
The sighted guide should serve as our model.
I told the professionals at the conference that I and any other
blind person, working with a sighted guide, could acquire
proficiency in communication that permits the team to jog or run at
full tilt without a word passing between them. No need to shout
"step up, step down," or other instructions to the blind member of
the team. All of the information needed by the blind runner comes
to him through the contact with the arm of his teammate. If
jogging or running are not the only reasons for traveling with a
sighted guide, then there may be spoken communication to provide
information about the surroundings. Like I said: This should be
our model for the communications that take place between the blind
traveler in the electronic aid of the twenty-first century, or
sometime thereafter.
Now back to the attache package I was putting together a bit
earlier. The spoken language information part of the sighted guide
metaphor can be implemented by a push of a button that causes the
machine to say things about where you are at the moment. The
kinesthetic communication part of the metaphor may be a bit harder
to come by. Perhaps the handle of the attache case can be made to
assume this function. Think of the handle as resembling the solid
plastic type that are sometimes found on suitcases. Think of this
handle as being rigidly mounted. Now, as you the blind traveler,
goes jogging along the corridors of the NFB convention hotel, or up
and down side streets in the neighborhood, that rigid handle is
going to clue you in on when to step up, step down, swerve to the
left or right, or stop dead. It will do all this by stepper motor
controlled tilting forward (to indicate step down,) tilt backward,
(step up,) swivel right or left to indicate change of course, (of
course,) and clamp down, that is to simultaneously pull down on
front and rear of the handle.
I have to tell you, colleagues, that the time ran short and I
didn't tell the engineers everything that I would have liked to.
Should I have?
What the mind of man can conceive, his science can achieve.
Thought experiments are respected tools of inquiry available to
all. Can you "think" a good way for an ideal navigational system
to steer a blind pedestrian?
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Dec 02 2012 - 01:30:03 PST