KeyBraille: I/O Haptic System for Mobile Devices Farzan Ahmad Khan and Mohamad Eid Applied Interactive Multimedia (AIM) Laboratory Division of Engineering, New York University Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates {fak250, mohamad.eid}@nyu.edu ABSTRACT The field of Haptics plays a key role in modern day communication and the fostering of interpersonal relationships. It only makes sense to use this field of indefinite potential to craft an application that helps the visually impaired people make up a significant 4% of the world population. In this paper, we introduce KeyBraille, a device that is a Braille keyboard that allows for reading and writing using haptic technology and serves as an add-on to any android smartphone. The KeyBraille device contains a 3 by 2 grid, which represents all the possible inputs for the Braille code. The case has six push buttons which serve to input information for each of the six possible Braille dots, and six vibrotactile motors that have a dual function for reading and for tactile feedback when the user is writing. Keywords – Braille language; smartphone; haptic communication system; technology for visually impaired; android application I. INTRODUCTION The fundamental part of the development of any idea at the expense of resources and manpower is its usability and application. The application of this project is approximately 4% of the world’s population; the significance of this number is amplified if one considers that this addresses around 285 million people who are visually impaired. [1] Over the past years, new advances in interactive multimedia systems have driven haptic technology to the forefront. Haptics is now treated as a separate medium rather than a domain under established fields like biomechanics, robotics and neuroscience among others. [2] The main advantage of haptic devices and systems is the fact that it is relatively silent and discreet, since it mainly involves vibrations that only the user can directly perceive. Therefore, it solves many of the issues of the accessibility communications presented henceforth. Smartphone companies have implemented several accessibility options for visually impaired people who use their products. One example of these systems is the voice- over system [3]. However, this system presents a serious privacy issue. With this technology, visually impaired individuals directly send and receive auditory information to their mobile phones; therefore, due to the nature of this type of information, it is highly non-private. People close to the user could hear what the individual is sending and receiving on their phone at all times. Our main objective was to create a device that allows visually impaired smartphone users to communicate with their smartphones in a private, comfortable and efficient manner. Research was carried out to analyze what already exists in this topic and, non-surprisingly, several studies were found that try to reconcile haptic technology with Braille reading through different means [4][5]. One of the research papers we encountered [6] attempted a similar approach to our design. The main difference with our device is that we strived to create a design that would blend in seamlessly with the phone. While in that study [6] they created an apparatus that attaches to the mobile device, we decided that creating a phone case, which doubles as a Braille keyboard would allow visually impaired people to utilize the features of KeyBraille, while at the same time having a smartphone that looks like all the others. This is all in an effort to allow these people to lead lives as normally as possible, avoiding discrimination and retaining their privacy. On the other hand, there are smartphone apps in the market, which allow the user to type in Braille directly into the touchscreen of the device [7][8][9]. However, these apps do not account for two aspects. First, there is no read function, since the apps only allow for writing in Braille. Apart from that, they do not allow for privacy in public areas, since the feedback system they have involve speaking the letter that was typed out loud, thus taking us back to the problem presented with traditional voice-over technologies. II. IMPLEMENTATION A. Hardware The KeyBraille device resembles a smartphone case, containing within the case the circuitry that enables its dual function of input and output. The device has six push buttons which serve to input information for each of the six possible Braille dots, and six vibrotactile motors that have a dual function for reading and for automatic feedback when the user is writing. These are arranged in two overlapping 3 by 2 grids, which can be used to represent all the possible inputs for the Braille code.