Braille laptop module for blind persons

With this display, blind persons can for the first time operate graphical user interfaces on computers and use traditional user programs.

Working together with metec and IMS Chips from Stuttgart within the framework of the HyperBraille project supported by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, Hahn-Schickard, for the first time, has created the basis for blind people and those with visual impairments to access image information alongside textual information. This device allows much more comprehensive access to multimedia, so the visually impaired can now also access the Internet through a Braille surface display. Even the "mouse-click function" can now be performed via the touch sensors.

720 braille modules are installed onto a DIN A4-sized surface

The centerpiece of the DIN A4-sized, interactive display is the Braille modules, each containing ten pins that are spaced 2.5 mm apart. The display consists of 720 individual braille modules and in total boasts of 7200 braille pins. The pins can be pushed out of the surface individually by 0.7mm using vertically mounted piezo actuators. Touch sensors integrated onto the surface make it possible for the user to interact by clicking the mouse. The Braille modules are produced in LPKF-LDS® technology, which fulfills high requirements in terms of the 3D conductor guide. Modules of this type can be lined up in two dimensions, compactly and in any way required. In the Hahn-Schickard TransferFab, a few thousand modules have already been produced to date.