Design of a “Cobot Tactile Display” for Accessing Virtual Diagrams by Blind and Visually Impaired Users

Access to graphical information plays a very significant role in today’s world. Access to this information can be particularly limiting for individuals who are blind or visually impaired (BVIs). In this work, we present the design of a low-cost, mobile tactile display that also provides robotic assistance/guidance using haptic virtual fixtures in a shared control paradigm to aid in tactile diagram exploration. This work is part of a larger project intended to improve the ability of BVI users to explore tactile graphics on refreshable displays (particularly exploration time and cognitive load) through the use of robotic assistance/guidance. The particular focus of this paper is to share information related to the design and development of an affordable and compact device that may serve as a solution towards this overall goal. The proposed system uses a small omni-wheeled robot base to allow for smooth and unlimited movements in the 2D plane. Sufficient position and orientation accuracy is obtained by using a low-cost dead reckoning approach that combines data from an optical mouse sensor and inertial measurement unit. A low-cost force-sensing system and an admittance control model are used to allow shared control between the Cobot and the user, with the addition of guidance/virtual fixtures to aid in diagram exploration. Preliminary semi-structured interviews, with four blind or visually impaired participants who were allowed to use the Cobot, found that the system was easy to use and potentially useful for exploring virtual diagrams tactually.