The Significance of Assistive Technologies

The term Assistive is defined as an action or situation which leads to help or support of an individual or a process. Technology is the systematic treatment of data, material, facts by scientific methods for achieving commercial, or industrial, or artistic objectives.

In a rapidly changing world where technical advances are critical to much of what we do, engineering plays a vital role for our daily lives. We now rely on engineering and technological achievements to help us explore space, conserve energy, safeguard the environment, produce innovative products for the global market, map the genetic code and develop breakthrough medical treatments as well as scan our groceries, link our telephones, run our appliances, and maintain our personal records. Unfortunately, not all of us enjoy these technological accomplishments. A large portion of the earth population (more than 10%) deals with various levels of discomfort or disabilities (from light to severe ones) that create frustration and disadvantages in these people's life.

During the last decades several research efforts have been directed toward providing better accessibility, communication and assistance to individuals with disabilities in their living environment by developing new devices and IT-Engineering scientific methodologies. However, there is still a need to overcome disability barriers encountered by disabled or elderly individuals. Until these barriers are eliminated, the disabled and elderly will continue to be underrepresented. The analytical abilities of people with disabilities should not be disregarded, since there is no evidence that this population does not possess the same range of abilities as the rest of the population. On the other hand, the lack of opportunities to develop and use those abilities will certainly impede their employment advancement.

A range of adaptive technologies and devices have evolved since the 1960's to assist people with disabilities in dealing with a variety of situations. The first generation of assistive devices emerged between the 1960's through 1990's. These included the Laser Cane, Mowatt Sensor, Sonic Guide VA and Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute projects, Synthetic Ear, Artificial arm, Artificial Heart, etc. As an example, in the area of visual impaired, most of the devices provided feedback through a varying range of tones and intensity vibrations. Specific sounds and/or vibrations communicated targeted information about a change in the terrain; however, such assistive devices enjoyed very limited success and popularity among blind consumers. The primary drawbacks included inconsistencies in feedback depending on various conditions (such as weather), possible disorientation caused by overuse of the sound space, and the fact that the information such devices provided was redundant to what the individual could discern on their own in a more

efficient manner using a cane or guide dog. The primary drawbacks of existing assistive devices are the cumbersome hardware, the level of technical expertise required to operate the devices, and the lack of portability. These technological advances do not facilitate unobtrusive in-door navigation and learning from the environment. This limits employment and social opportunities for blind and visually impaired individuals.

In summary, these technological advances target specific functional deficits, but largely neglect social aspects, and do not provide an integrated, multi-functional, transparent, and extensible solution that addresses the variety of challenges (such as independence) encountered in everyday blind people's lives.

It is the universal belief of all the researchers around the globe to increase opportunities for disabled individuals based on a problem-centric (rather than technology-centric) view, and should therefore be directed toward the problems identified by disabled and elderly as being the most important. Motivated by this belief, at the ATRC we conduct discussions with focus groups consisting of blind, deaf, paraplegic individuals, researchers involved in disability studies, mobility instructors, teachers, and companies that manufacture products in adaptive technology. During these discussions, we have identified the need for particular technical solutions thatwill enhance their independent mobility, communication, accessibility opportunities in a way acceptable by them. The focus group felt that current technological advances should be used to design user-friendly and portable devices that would facilitate mobility, accessibility and communication to the living and working environment.

In conjunction with government, industry, and other academic institutions, researchers at Wright State University are investigating these pressing issues. Work in AT related areas includes creating tools for developing reliable, cost-effective, reusable methodologies; solving very complex problems through reverse engineering; utilizing computers to improve the design process and to model physical systems; creating more intelligent assistive systems; developing more user friendly interfaces; and developing techniques to incorporate diverse data types and very large databases into sophisticated, multi-sensor processing systems.

By both exploring and exploiting such technical areas, the ATRC advances the state of the art and assists the development of emerging high-risk technologies and assistive devices. Because of the exceptionally broad scope of assistive technologies, our work further contributes to enhanced jobs development, especially for Ohio companies. In addition, the manufacturing industry offers many promising opportunities for new business ventures.