A single-character refreshable braille display with FPGA control

Abstract

Visual impairment, in terms of sight loss and blindness, affects 285 million people worldwide. While 80% of the cases are either treatable or preventable, the remainder require alternative means to compensate limitations in mobility, reading, communication, access technology, etc. For this purpose, braille is an alphabet used by the visually impaired for tactile reading. Refreshable braille displays are electromechanical devices used for the electronic display of braille characters. This paper presents a one-character refreshable braille display, implemented with electromagnetic relays and control logic implemented on a field programmable gate array (FPGA). The advantage of one-character braille display is that it enables static reading, which contributes to user comfort. From a technical point of view, one-character braille display requires a reduced number of electromechanical components. This allows a smaller size of the display device, as well as reduced costs. On the other hand, FPGA control exhibits several advantages in terms of ease of use and parallel processing. Experiments demonstrate the functionality of the proposed braille display device.