Promotes understanding: Russian engineers create a device to communicate with deaf-blind people with speech impairments

Engineers from NUST MISIS, together with the Russian design bureau Karfidov Lab, have developed a device for communicating with deaf-blind people with speech impairments.

This was reported by the MISIS press service.

The device was named "VibroBraille" - it works on the principle of Braille (a relief-point tactile font designed for writing and reading by blind and visually impaired people. - 

). It is a small gadget with built-in tactile elements that send signals to the user at their fingertips. The device also has a built-in microphone that helps to recognize speech addressed to a deaf-blind person.

“When people start talking to a deaf-blind person, the device vibrates.

Then the deaf-blind person presses a button and confirms that he wants to start a dialogue.

All speech of the speaker is converted into Braille, which is a set of 6 dots or symbols.

The device itself has a display with buttons that, in fact, replace this language.

These buttons are tactile and have feedback, and the deaf-blind person, thanks to these tactile buttons, understands what exactly he is being told.

By pressing these buttons, the deaf-blind person can also keep in touch with the interlocutor, since the device converts these clicks into ordinary speech, "said Alexei Karfidov, head of the department of technological equipment engineering at NUST MISIS, in an interview with RT.

• "VibroBraille"

• © NUST MISIS Press Service

The device works in conjunction with an application on a mobile phone with which it is connected via Bluetooth.

Due to the dictionary of meanings, implemented in the application, where each Braille character corresponds to a letter of the alphabet, words are converted into tactile signals and vice versa.

According to the developers, their device differs from its counterparts in compactness and simplicity.

Similar devices, which are trying to create for the deaf-blind, do not have all the functions that VibroBraille has, Russian experts note.

"VibroBraille" has passed test tests, and now it is being prepared for launch into mass production.