Hearing Through Haptics: A Planar, Audio-spatial Awareness Device

Campbell, Amani Adriana Melbourne; Wood, Emily S.; Ancalmo, Colin; Van Tronk, James Ray; Liu, Yifan

Student Work

Hearing Through Haptics: A Planar, Audio-spatial Awareness Device Public

The Deaf and Hard of Hearing community faces challenges identifying audio-based alerts. The goal of this project is to develop a portable, planar and non-invasive wearable device that is independent of the vestibular nerve and does not inhibit user behavior. Haptic technology has the capability to bypass mechanisms of traditional hearing for increased assistive accessibility. The device is intended to provide audio-spatial awareness by using haptic vibrations for sensory substitution to sense urgent safety alerts (i.e. alarms, sirens) and social interaction cues. Using three-dimensional arrangements of actuator and microphone pairs and input signal filtering through a microcontroller, sound sources can be identified and directionally located, indicated to the user via actuator vibrations.

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