Autoencoding sensory substitution

Tens of millions of people live blind, and their number is ever increasing. Visual-to-auditory sensory substitution (SS) encompasses a family of cheap, generic solutions to assist the visually impaired by conveying visual information through sound. The required SS training is lengthy: months of effort is necessary to reach a practical level of adaptation. There are two reasons for the tedious training process: the elongated substituting audio signal, and the disregard for the compressive characteristics of the human hearing system. To overcome these obstacles, we developed a novel class of SS methods, by training deep recurrent autoencoders for image-to-sound conversion. We successfully trained deep learning models on different datasets to execute visual-to-auditory stimulus conversion. By constraining the visual space, we demonstrated the viability of shortened substituting audio signals, while proposing mechanisms, such as the integration of computational hearing models, to optimally convey visual features in the substituting stimulus as perceptually discernible auditory components. We tested our approach in two separate cases. In the first experiment, the author went blindfolded for 5 days, while performing SS training on hand posture discrimination. The second experiment assessed the accuracy of reaching movements towards objects on a table. In both test cases, above-chance-level accuracy was attained after a few hours of training. Our novel SS architecture broadens the horizon of rehabilitation methods engineered for the visually impaired. Further improvements on the proposed model shall yield hastened rehabilitation of the blind and a wider adaptation of SS devices as a consequence

High-speed acoustic holography with arbitrary scattering objects

Recent advances in high-speed acoustic holography have enabled levitation-based volumetric displays with tactile and audio sensations. However, current approaches do not compute sound scattering of objects’ surfaces; thus, any physical object inside can distort the sound field. Here, we present a fast computational technique that allows high-speed multipoint levitation even with arbitrary sound-scattering surfaces and demonstrate a volumetric display that works in the presence of any physical object. Our technique has a two-step scattering model and a simplified levitation solver, which together can achieve more than 10,000 updates per second to create volumetric images above and below static sound-scattering objects. The model estimates transducer contributions in real time by reformulating the boundary element method for acoustic holography, and the solver creates multiple levitation traps. We explain how our technique achieves its speed with minimum loss in the trap quality and illustrate how it brings digital and physical content together by demonstrating mixed-reality interactive applications

THE PERSUASION PROCESSES IN VIRTUAL REALITY IN THE CONTEXT OF TECHNOLOGY ACCEPTANCE

This dissertation investigates the extent to which a media audience’s degree of technology acceptance (as a mediator) and interactivity of the media influence the user’s sense of presence, enjoyment, and message engagement, and finally lead to attitude change (persuasion). The study also explores how the user processes a message and changes the individuals’ attitude, guided by the Heuristic-Systematic Model (HSM) of information processing. To test hypotheses, two different types of media as stimuli sorted by levels of stereoscopic dimension (2D screen versus 3D virtual reality) describing a Syrian Refugee crisis were used for an experiment in the study. Stimuli were randomly assigned to 105 university students to 1) watch (screen) or 2) experience (VR). After the experiment, participants were asked to complete a set of questionnaires, which included items to assess the amount of heuristic and systematic processing; the level of presence; message engagement; enjoyment; message-consistent attitude change; and behavioral intention. The results showed VR (high interactivity) induced participants’ higher level of telepresence, social presence, message engagement, and enjoyment than a screen (low interactivity), and finally led to message-consistent attitude and behavioral intention. Heuristic processing was primarily worked in VR, where Systematic processing was mainly shown in the 2D condition. In addition, it was found that Technological Acceptance significantly worked as a mediator between interactivity and message engagement. Limitations and suggestions for future research were discussed with implications for both academic and business field

Identification and control of haptic systems : a computational theory

Also issued as a Ph.D. thesis, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.Includes bibliographical references (p. 161-167).Sponsored by the Office of Naval Research. N00014-91-J-1814Steingrimur Pall Karason, Anurudha [i.e. Anuradha] M. Annaswamy, and Mandayam A. Srinivasan

Mini-Hand Extension

Lam Research supplies equipment for manufacturing silicon wafers used in semiconductor manufacturing. Their equipment is highly sophisticated and therefore costly, both in time and money, to repair. Much of the time and money spent to service those machines when they require maintenance or repair is spent on disassembly, so Lam seeks a faster way to service their equipment. Al Schoepp, a Senior Technical Director at Lam Research, came to Cal Poly seeking a team of students to design and build a device that could emulate the human hand well enough to handle hardware and thread nuts and bolts but also be usable inside one of the manufacturing machines at Lam. Team R.E.A.C.H., consisting of Aulivia Bounchaleun, Haden Cory, Scott Onsum, and Zack Phillips, have designed a device called the R.E.A.C.H. device, which stands for Reach Extender And Component Handler, to help Lam Research save both time and money when servicing their equipment. The device is operable with one hand, has an integrated vision and lighting system with a wireless monitor, can extend the user’s reach up to almost 24 inches, and can fit through a two inch diameter hole while carrying a ½-13 nut. This report details the design process that Team R.E.A.C.H. used to develop the R.E.A.C.H. device starting from the initial background research and problem definition all the way up through the detailed analysis and technical drawings of the prototype

A Control Architecture for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Operating in Human-Robot Team for Service Robotic Tasks

In this thesis a Control architecture for an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) is presented. The aim of the thesis is to address the problem of control a flying robot operating in human robot team at different level of abstraction. For this purpose, three different layers in the design of the architecture were considered, namely, the high level, the middle level and the low level layers. The special case of an UAV operating in service robotics tasks and in particular in Search&Rescue mission in alpine scenario is considered. Different methodologies for each layer are presented with simulated or real-world experimental validation

The Textile Archive: curating personal histories and family narratives

Textiles are a ubiquitous facet of global culture, with the potential to become records of significant relationships, events, and stories over their lifetime. This research project investigates textiles which have been informally gathered together, and kept within the home, for their emotional or symbolic resonance. No longer used for their designed function, these textiles are saved from disposal for their ability to prompt personal and family histories and stories, in a phenomenon identified within the study as the personal textile archive. Textile design research is increasingly concerned with incorporating interdisciplinary social and cultural frameworks within its traditional research fields of technology, innovation and creativity, to frame a textile's socio-cultural relevance. This shift in the field requires the development of specific textile design research tools which are capable of producing purposeful research which analyses the material and designed properties of textiles in relation to their symbolic or affective experience, in order to understand the user-experience of a textile. Phenomenological research methods are established as tools for investigating phenomena and lived experience from a first-person perspective, which the investigation of the personally significant textiles within this study requires. A particular method, interpretative phenomenological analysis, has been specifically adapted for textile design research, and it is demonstrated within this research project that is is able to investigate and analyse the personal textile archive, producing original insights into this phenomenon. Through this application of this adaptation of interpretative phenomenological analysis, the design, affordances and craftsmanship of a textile are revealed as interweaving with its emotional, sentimental, biographical orfamily historical meaning. This is a useful and important original contribution to textile design research, and the recommendation is made that other researchers in the field will be able to utilise and further test this tool within future textile design research studies

Kairoscope : coordinating time socially

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning, Program in Media Arts and Sciences, 2010.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 146-150).If everyone says time is relative, why is it still so rigidly defined? There have been many attempts to address the issue of coordinating schedules, but each of these attempts runs into an issue of rigidity: in order to negotiate an event, a specific time must be designated in advance. This model is inherently poor at accommodating life's unpredictability. Kairoscope looks at time from a human perspective, focusing on time as made up of a series of events, rather than simply a series of events in time. This removes our reliance on a fixed time system, thus allowing people to coordinate events socially and on the fly, without worrying about precision. This thesis explores the creation of Kairoscope, rooted in ideas behind our perception of time, and created with the goals of reducing time-related stress, optimizing for use of time, and increasing social interaction. The proposal is a model of contextually-aware agents, constantly in communication with each other. The result is a socially-coordinated, constantly adapting, and highly malleable system to guide users through time and their schedules, without the heavy burden of precise planning. This thesis evaluates the potential implications of and the reactions to this model, as well as the design and interactions necessary to create such a system.by Reed Eric Martin.S.M

Augmented Reality

There is at present no publication specifically dedicated to analyzing the philosophical implications of augmented reality. Applications cover diverse fields like psychopathology and education, implications concern issues as diverse as negative knowledge, group cognition, the internet of things, and ontological issues, among others. In this way, it is intended not only to generate answers, but also, to draw attention to new problems that arise with the diffusion of augmented reality. In order to contemplate these problems from diverse perspectives, the authors are from a variety of fields - philosophy, computer sciences, education, psychology, and many more. Accordingly, the volume offers varied and interesting contributions which are of interest to professionals from multiple disciplines