Tech Briefs Magazine - May 2024 - 34

Robot Reads Braille Twice as Fast as Humans
A robotic sensor incorporates AI techniques to read braille at speeds roughly double that of
most human readers.
University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
A
University of Cambridge team used
machine learning algorithms to
teach a robotic sensor to quickly slide
over lines of braille text. The robot was
able to read the braille at 315 words per
minute at close to 90 percent accuracy.
Although the robot braille reader was
not developed as an assistive technology,
the researchers say the high sensitivity
required to read braille makes it an
ideal test in the development of robot
hands or prosthetics with comparable
sensitivity to human fingertips. The results
are reported in the journal IEEE
Robotics and Automation Letters.
Reproducing that level of sensitivity
in a robotic hand, in an energy-efficient
way, is a big engineering challenge.
" The softness of human fingertips
is one of the reasons we're able to grip
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This robot can read twice as
fasts as the average human reader.
The robotic sensor the researchers used has a camera in its 'fingertip' and reads by using a combination
of the information from the camera and the sensors. (Image: University of Cambridge)
things with the right amount of pressure, "
said first author Parth Potdar. " For
robotics, softness is a useful characteristic,
but you also need lots of sensor information,
and it's tricky to have both at
once, especially when dealing with flexible
or deformable surfaces. "
Braille is an ideal test for a robot 'fingertip'
as reading it requires high sensitivity,
since the dots in each representative
letter pattern are so close together.
The researchers used an off-the-shelf
sensor to develop a robotic braille reader
that more accurately replicates human
reading behavior.
" There are existing robotic braille
readers, but they only read one letter
at a time, which is not how humans
read, " said Co-Author David Hardman.
" Existing robotic braille readers work
in a static way: they touch one letter
pattern, read it, pull up from the surface,
move over, lower onto the next
letter pattern, and so on. We want
something that's more realistic and far
more efficient. "
The robotic sensor the researchers
used has a camera in its 'fingertip' and
reads by using a combination of the information
from the camera and the sensors.
" This is a hard problem for roboticists
as there's a lot of image processing
that needs to be done to remove motion
blur, which is time and energy-consuming, "
said Potdar.
34
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The team developed machine learning
algorithms so the robotic reader
would be able to 'deblur' the images before
the sensor attempted to recognize
the letters. They trained the algorithm
on a set of sharp images of braille with
fake blur applied. After the algorithm
had learned to deblur the letters, they
used a computer vision model to detect
and classify each character.
Once the algorithms were incorporated,
the researchers tested their reader by sliding
it quickly along rows of braille characters.
The robotic braille reader could read
at 315 words per minute at 87 percent accuracy,
which is twice as fast and about as
accurate as a human braille reader.
" Considering that we used fake blur
to train the algorithm, it was surprising
how accurate it was at reading braille, "
said Hardman. " We found a nice tradeoff
between speed and accuracy, which is
also the case with human readers. "
" Braille reading speed is a great way
to measure the dynamic performance of
tactile sensing systems, so our findings
could be applicable beyond braille, for
applications like detecting surface textures
or slippage in robotic manipulation, "
said Potdar.
In future, the researchers are hoping
to scale the technology to the size of a
humanoid hand or skin.
For more information, contact Sarah
Collins at sarah.collins@admin.cam.ac.uk.
Tech Briefs, May 2024

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Tech Briefs Magazine - May 2024

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