• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.9 no.8
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• pp.592-599
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• 2003

As one of the Principal modalities of human sensation, tactile feel is prerequisite for building wide variety of applications such as telemanipulation, virtual reality and medical engineering. A dynamic Braille display device based on a polymer actuator is presented. The actuator, often called artificial muscle actuator has advantageous features over the existing methods in terms of intrinsic softness, ease of fabrication, cost-effectiveness and miniaturization. The principles of actuation with dielectric elastomer is introduced, and necessary considerations on the design of a tactile display device are discussed. The design of the device is described in detail including the fabrication process and driving electronics. Also, preliminary results of experiments are given to evaluate its performance.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea CI
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• v.48 no.2
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• pp.1-8
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• 2011

In this paper, we propose a haptic display system that can convert Braille and tactual map(braille map) to tactile information recognizable through sense of touch almost in real-time. The proposed system consists of a haptic display hardware device, which actually delivers tactile signal to visually impaired people, and a device control software program, which converts Braille and tactile information to tactile signal and transfers it to the hardware device. Experimental evaluations of the proposed system were performed with 10 visually impaired persons. Experimental results show that the proposed system can provide similar Braille recognition rate and speed to those of existing Braille information devices. In addition, the proposed system converts tactile information to tactile signal under maximum 1.1 seconds, so that it can provide graphic information in almost real-time which is not possible with existing tactile devices, such as Braille printer.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.10 no.11
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• pp.961-970
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• 2004

Tactile sensation is one of the most important sensory functions along with the auditory sensation for the visually impaired since it replaces the visual one of the persons with sight. In this paper, we present a tactile display device as a dynamic Braille display that is the unique tool f3r exchanging information among them. The tactile cell of the Braille display proposed is based on the dielectric elastomer, which is one of the electroactive polymers. It has advantageous features over the existing ones with respect to intrinsic softness, ease of fabrication, cost effectiveness and miniaturization. We introduce a new idea for actuation as well as additional considerations such as the driving circuit that makes it possible to drive multiple tactile cells in a high speed. Also, we describe the actuating mechanism of the Braille pin in details capable of realizing the enhanced spatial density of the tactile cells. Finally, results of psychophysical experiments are given to evaluate its effectiveness.

• Proceedings of the IEEK Conference
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• 1999.06a
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• pp.559-562
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• 1999

In this paper, we developed on internet based assembly information display system for the blind. The system is consist of hardware and software. The hardware is consist of a voice synthesis device and a tactile display for character information, and the software is consist of internet web browser for the blind and braille program. The tactile-device system consists of a control unit, pin array, pin generator, serial port, and a power supply. The pin exerted by a electromagnetic method, solenoid. The internet web browser separates the character and image from internet web page, and character information in the web page is converted to braille and fed to sound system. Also the image in the web page can be printed developed tactile display. As the results of experiment, the blind could access the internet web site by using this system and understand various internet information.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.89-101
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• 2006

Tactile sensation is one of the most important sensory functions for human perception of objects. Recently, there have been many technical challenges in the field of tactile display as well as tactile sensing. In this paper, we propose an innovative tactile display device based on soft actuator technology with ElectroActive Polymer(EAP). This device offers advantageous features over existing devices with respect to intrinsic flexibility, softness, ease of fabrication and miniaturization, high power density, and cost effectiveness. In particular, it can be adapted to various geometric configurations because it possesses structural flexibility, so it can be worn on any part of the human body such as finger, palm, and arm etc. It can be extensively applied as a wearable tactile display, a Braille device for the visually disabled, and a human interface in the future. A new design of the flexible actuator is proposed and its basic operational principles are discussed. In addition, a wearable tactile display device with $4{\times}5$ actuator array(20 actuator cells) is developed and its effectiveness is confirmed.

• 한국HCI학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2008.02a
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• pp.337-341
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• 2008

This paper presents a vibrotactile space mouse which use pin-type vibrotactile display modules and a gyroscope chip. This mouse is a new interface device which is not only an input device as an ordinary space mouse but also a tactile output device. It consists of a space mouse which use gyroscope chip and vibrotactile display modules which have been developed in our own laboratory. Lately, by development of vibrotactile display modules which have small size and consume low power, vibrotactile displays are available in small sized embedded systems such as wireless mouses or mobile devices. Also, development of new sensors like miniature size gyroscope by MEMS technology enables manufacturing of a small space mouse which can be used in the air not in a plane. The vibrotactile space mouse proposed in this paper recognizes motion of a hand using the gyroscope chip and transmits the data to PC through Bluetooth. PC application receives the data and moves pointer. Also, 2 by 3 arrays of pin-type vibrotactile actuators are mounted on the front side of the mouse where fingers of a user's hand contact, and those actuators could be used to represent various information such as gray-scale of an image or Braille patterns for visually impared persons.

• Proceedings of the Korea Information Processing Society Conference
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• 2015.04a
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• pp.1031-1032
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• 2015

이전부터 시각 장애인들은 제한된 인쇄매체를 사용해왔다. 하지만 시각 장애인들은 각종 데이터 및 콘텐츠 정보에 대한 접근성이 부족하여 일반인과의 정보 격차가 심화될 수밖에 없다. 이를 해결하기 위해 시각 장애인의 환경을 개선할 수 있는 여러 장비들이 개발되고 있다. 그 중에서도 문자 표기의 경우 점자 표기로 대체하여 사용되어왔으며 대표적인 예로는 점자 출력 장치가 있다. 하지만 기존의 점자 출력 장치는 고가이며 경제적으로 어려운 시각장애인의 경우 구입하기 어렵다. 또한 제조사 별로 제공하는 콘텐츠 수의 한계로 인해 보다 효과적인 사용이 어렵다. 본 논문에서는 스마트 디바이스와 연동 가능한 저가형 점자 출력 장치를 제안한다.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Information Management Conference
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• 2014.08a
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• pp.115-118
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• 2014

본 연구는 특허정보의 제목 및 초록에 나타난 장애인을 위한 전자출판의 접근성 기술 동향을 분석하고자 관련 유효특허를 수집 분석하였다. 분석내용은 특허 출원 빈도, IPC 주제분류, 전자출판 접근성 기술 분류 기준에 의한 세부 기술별 출원 동향, 주제어 출현 빈도 등을 파악하였다. 연구결과 장애인의 전자출판 접근성 분야는 출원 건수가 증가하는 전형적인 성장기 단계이며, IPC 주제분류는 섹션G(물리학), 섹션H(전기)영역에서 주로 특허가 출원되고 있으며 세부 기술별 출원 동향은 문자를 점자로 변환 압축 및 관련 보조공학기기 개발 특허 등이 중심적으로 나타났다. 출현 빈도수를 기준으로 한 상위 주제어는 braille, display, device, tactile, character, control 순으로 나타났다.