About

TacRead is a refreshable braille display (RBD) that enables people with visual impairment to read digital text through a tactile interface. Textual content in Portable Document Format (PDF), word documents etc. can be read using the display without having to emboss/print on braille paper.
Commercially available RBDs have not been able to penetrate the market due to their high cost. TacRead employs shape memory alloy (SMA) based actuation which is a low-cost alternative compared to the piezoelectric technology used by existing RBDs.

TacRead gives an access to diverse textual media and opens doors for the development of various products that shall strongly empower them in fields of education, employment, and quality-of-life. Braille tutor systems, deaf-blind communication devices, and tactile math displays are some examples of products thus derived that entail mainstream integration in these fields.

Need

• People with blindness are unable to access digital media via touch due to lack of affordable braille displays.
• Paper-embossed braille is bulky, expensive and short-lived; only a fraction of digital material is available on paper
• Spatial aspect of text required for learning spelling, mathematics and equations, is not provided by the speech synthesizing software.
• Educational and occupational practices are limited due to current dependency on audio and speech-based devices.
• Braille literacy is essential for the empowerment of visually impaired people and offers several advantages over auditory aids.