SGER: Prototype Accessible Aquarium: Exploration of Advanced Bio-Tracking and Adaptive Sonification Infrastructure

Georgia Tech Research Corporation, Atlanta GA

Investigators

Abstract

Museums, science centers, zoos, and aquaria are in the business of educating and entertaining the visiting public. However, as such institutions strive to become more accessible to people with disabilities, they must find ways to accommodate an increasingly diverse visitor population with varying physical and sensory needs. Facilities that rely primarily on the visual experiences of their exhibits to promote educational and entertainment goals, for example, often find it challenging to enable meaningful participation by the millions of people who are blind or visually impaired. When exhibits are dynamic the problems are compounded, as movements and changes are often difficult to describe, and interactions hard to afford, to individuals who lack normal vision. The behavior of fish in an aquarium, the play of chimpanzees or lion cubs in a zoo habitat, and the cosmic dance of the planets in a science center?s model of the solar system are examples of dynamic exhibits that have until now been inaccessible to visitors with vision impairments. The ultimate goal of the PI in the Accessible Aquarium Project is to make such dynamic exhibits accessible and engaging for visitors with vision impairments, by providing real-time interpretations through the use of innovative tracking and audio technologies. The PI and his team hope to eventually develop cutting edge bio-tracking and behavior analysis techniques that can provide input for sophisticated, informative, and compelling multimedia auditory displays and sonifications (sounds used for the purpose of conveying information about some kind of data to a listener). Virtually every exhibit in an aquarium is dynamic; furthermore, the aquatic nature of these exhibits provides unique and interesting challenges to the use of typical sensing technologies and techniques for tracking. As a result, considerable innovation and new science will be required for the project to succeed. In this exploratory project the PI will assemble an end-to-end proof-of-concept system that involves a research aquarium with live fish, a camera-based bio-tracking system, an algorithmic music generation system, and a method/interface for users to interact with the resulting audio service. Tracking and sonification algorithms will be developed and integrated, so that the movements of the fish can be used to generate music and other audio annotations. The resulting audio output will be presented to a range of sighted and visually impaired participants, and both objective performance and subjective data will be collected. An iterative design-evaluate-redesign process will allow the PI to rapidly and effectively improve the basic system, and provide a solid proof of concept. This will lead to a complete research platform that can later be used for more in-depth research in all of the constituent fields. The project will draw on the talent of efforts of, and derive inspiration from, a diverse group of researchers, students, and expert members of the community, including a great number of persons with visual impairments. Broader Impacts: This project will advance knowledge in bio-tracking, behavior analysis, sonification, auditory displays, and computer music. While these advances will each be important in their respective fields, the synergy of the advancements in these various areas will open up a whole new world to people with vision impairments: the complex natural choreography of a dynamic aquatic environment. The findings will be applicable beyond aquaria to other kinds of facilities such as zoos and museums, and also beyond individuals with vision impairments to other groups of people such as seniors or those for whom mobility, height, or other problems make it hard to see traditional signage. Indeed, all visitors will benefit from an audio enhancement that allows them to learn about an exhibit while keeping their visual attention on the exhibit itself.