Aiding the Visually Impaired: Developing an efficient Braille Printer

Anubhav Apurva Department of Computer and Communication Technology Manipal Institute of Technology Manipal University
India anubhav.apurva@learner.manipal.edu

Anupam Misra
Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering Manipal Institute of Technology Manipal University
India anupammisra1995@gmail.com

Palash Thakur Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering Manipal Institute of Technology Manipal University
India palashthakur1@gmail.com

Abstract— With the large number of partially or completely visually impaired persons in society, their integration as productive, educated and capable members of society is hampered heavily by a pervasively high level of braille illiteracy. This problem is further compounded by the fact that braille printers are prohibitively expensive – generally starting from two thousand US dollars, beyond the reach of the common man. Over the period of a year, the authors have tried to develop a Braille printer which attempts to overcome the problems inherent in commercial printers. The purpose of this paper, therefore, is to introduce two prototypes – the first with an emphasis of cost- effectiveness, and the second prototype, which is more experimental and aims to eliminate several demerits of Braille printing. The first prototype has been constructed at a cost significantly less than the existing commercial Braille printers. Both the prototypes of the device have been constructed, which will be shown. Keywords— printer, braille, servos, extrusion, thermoplastic, embossment I. INTRODUCTION
The number of visually impaired people in India has been increasing steadily over the past twenty years. Estimated to be 24.1 million by 2010, and 31.6 million by 2020, the vast numbers of blind people in India is a great source of concern. Out of a 2004 survey taking 72,044 visually impaired individuals, 71% were found to be illiterate, and 84.6% reside in rural areas [1]. A factor that further makes this problematic is the fact that the cost of Braille printers lies from $2000 to $5000, with large volume Braille printers costing anywhere from $10000 to $80000 [2]. Hence, the need for a device to aid this marginalized section of society is pressing and inarguable. Therefore, the primary focus of this work is to introduce two Braille printing technologies, the working of whom will be explained in the following sections. Section 2 focuses on related patents in the field. Section 3 is the literature review section, with a focus on current trends in the field. The fourth and fifth sections of this paper deal with the first prototype and its basic principle. Section 6-8 deal with the problems present in the first prototype and the development of a second prototype.
A 1996 study [3] analyzing employability and education levels of congenitally visually impaired people with respect to braille versus print as their original reading medium, concluded that those who learned to read using Braille were more employable than those who were not. Through reducing problems in modern braille printing, the team hopes that these improvements may be used to develop Braille devices which can alleviate poverty due to widespread illiteracy amongst the visually impaired populace. II. RELATED PATENTS Current braille printers rely on printing techniques mostly reliant on embossment technologies. Multiple designs for printing solenoids have been patented. One of the most commonly cited is a technology patented in 1980[4] - the printing technology is comprised of a base member having a plurality of printing pins arranged in a row. A semicircular printing plate is pressed against the paper through a driving mechanism, and pins corresponding to the character to be printer are pressed downward through the excitation of solenoids.
Another patent deals with a solenoid design for superior Braille printing[5]. A more recent patent deals with an embossment based portable Braille writing system, with a system of keys and corresponding embossment pins being driven into the paper by the corresponding key-press.[6] Another relevant technology is a 1971 patent (US3598042A) [7], which is also embossment based. Although most Braille printing related literature are embossment based, there have been proposals to print using lithography, as seen in a 1978 patent proposal [8].

III. LITERATURE REVIEW AND TRENDS IN ASSISTIVE TECHNOLOGIES

This section will deal with a brief overview of recent trends and developments in reading assistive technologies for the blind, particularly pertaining to Braille reading.
Lita, Mazare et al. [9] have built a module (based on a PIC 16F877 microcontroller) to emboss Braille print – the module is meant to be an educational tool for the teaching of Braille.

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