Granular Jamming Refreshable Tactile Display

Communicating digital information to visually impaired individuals has been an ongoing challenge in research and industry for over thirty years. Audio (via speech recognition and text-to-speech) and tactile (via Braille Displays) representations of visual information are currently the primary forms of communication. While these two forms of input and output serve as suitable forms for communicating textual information, the ability to dynamically communicate visual information such as pictures and graphics has yet to be solved. Refreshable graphics for the visually impaired, to the extent that they exist, are expensive and complex devices. This project seeks to address this gap by developing a hardware and software system for generating refreshable tactile graphics using concepts based on granular jamming (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2973877/). 

Project Challenges

* Develop an affordable, reproduceable, open source system.
* Create an air tight environment capable of rendering tactilely differentiated surface areas.
* Control and actuation of jammed segments.

Project Skills

This project will involve a variety of skills, including:

* Controlling motorized parts through a microcontroller
* Communication between a microcontroller and computer
* 3D design and printing of parts
* Development of flexible material to support jamming material