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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Braille Displays Get New Life With Artificial Muscles</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
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12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Braille Displays Get New Life With Artificial Muscles<br>
Braille Displays Get New Life With Artificial Muscles</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
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12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Research with tiny artificial muscles may yield a full-page
active Braille system that can refresh automatically and come to life right
beneath your fingertips.</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
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12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Yosi-Bar Cohen, a senior researcher at NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif, was inspired during a business trip to
Washington, D.C., where<br>
a convention for people with visual impairments was taking place.</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
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12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Bar-Cohen came up with an idea to create a "living
Braille," a digital, refreshable Braille device using electroactive
polymers, also known as artificial<br>
muscles. He wrote up a technology report and included information in a related
book that he published. His writings inspired other scientists and engineers<br>
to create active displays using this technology, and prototypes are now under
development around the world.</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
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12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>"I hope that sometime in the future we will have Braille
on an iPhone. It will be portable and able to project a picture of a
neighborhood popping up in<br>
front of you in the form of raised dots," said Bar-Cohen. "A digital
Braille operated by artificial muscles could provide for rapid information
exchange,<br>
such as e-mail, text messaging and access to the web and other electronic
databases or archives."</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
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12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>According to the World Health Organization, about 314
million people are visually impaired worldwide; 45 million of them are blind.</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
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12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Recently, Bar-Cohen was contacted by the Center for Braille
Innovation of the Boston-based National Braille Press to reach out to the
Electroactive Polymer<br>
community and take advantage of his role in this field. The National Braille
Press is a non-profit Braille printing and publishing house that promotes<br>
the literacy of blind children through Braille.</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Current Braille Display Technologies</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
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12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>The challenge for creating an active Braille display is in
packing many small dots into a tiny volume.</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
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12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Unlike hardcopy Braille, a refreshable display requires the
raising and lowering of a large number of densely packed dots that allow a
person to quickly<br>
read them. Currently, commercial active Braille devices are limited to a single
line of characters. A full page of Braille typically has 25 lines of up<br>
to 40 characters per line. Characters are represented by six or eight dots per
cell, arranged in two columns. To produce a page of refreshable Braille<br>
using electroactive polymers requires individually activating and controlling
thousands of raiseable dots.</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
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12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Developing New Braille Technologies</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
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12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Some of the leading-edge work in Braille technology was
developed at SRI in Menlo Park, Calif. Richard Heydt, a senior research
engineer there who was involved<br>
in developing a prototype says, "The electroactive polymer technology
seems to be a natural fit for Braille and tactile display applications."</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
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12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>The Braille display developed at SRI is based on activating
a type of polymer consisting of a thin sheet of acrylic that deforms in
response to voltage<br>
applied across the film. The individual Braille dots are defined by a pattern
on this film, and each dot is independently activated to produce the dot<br>
combinations for Braille letters and numbers.</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
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12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>In currently available active refreshable Braille displays,
each dot is a pin driven by a small motor or electromagnetic coil. In contrast,
in the SRI display<br>
the actuators are defined regions on a single sheet of film. Thus, while each
dot is raised or lowered by its own applied voltage, there are no motors,<br>
bulky actuators, or similar components. Since the system has far fewer discrete
components for a Braille dot array, it would be potentially much lower<br>
in cost.</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
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12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>"The contributions of the developers of electroactive
materials to making a low-cost, active Braille display would significantly
improve the life of many<br>
people with visual impairments, while advancing the field to benefit other
applications" said Bar-Cohen.</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Looking for the 'Holy Braille'</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
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12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>The Boston-based National Braille Press has recently
established a Center for Braille Innovation. They're looking for the "Holy
Braille," a full-page electronic<br>
Braille display, at a low cost.</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>"We feel that the exciting field of electroactive
polymer technology has matured to the point where it can provide real solutions
for Braille displays.<br>
We welcome and encourage anyone who wants to take part in Braille
innovation," said Noel H. Runyan, National Braille Press, Center for
Braille Innovation</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>In the spring of 2010, Bar-Cohen is including a special
session on tactile displays at an SPIE conference. SPIE is the international
society for optics<br>
and photonics. Tactile displays will be presented and possibly demonstrated at
the conference. He hopes these baby steps may someday lead to a full-page<br>
Braille system that will allow people to feel and "see" the universe
beneath their fingers.</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>JPL is managed for NASA by the California Institute of
Technology in Pasadena.</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
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