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

The University Of Texas Rio Grande Valley, Edinburg TX

Investigators

Abstract

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.