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For example, when sighted scholars study mathematics and physics etcetera, they need to access visual information, e.g., graphs and pictures. Furthermore, sighted people can express their own ideas and opinions visually. On the other hand, blind people can access visual information if it is expressed tactilely, but find it difficult to express their ideas and opinions visually. We are therefore developing a computer-aided system enabling blind people to draw their own figures on their own. This system consists of a matrix braille display to edit computer line drawings. The matrix braille display enables the blind to feel a tactile graphic during editing. After explaining two input methods for elementary plane shapes, we discuss two methods for scrolling tactile graphics to make the matrix braille display large enough to show tactile graphics in sufficient detail. We then show experimental results for using input and scrolling, and conclude with discussion on the usability of input and scrolling.

This manuscript describes a robot interaction for the driving assistance system of an Ultra-Compact Electric Vehicle (UCEV). Fun-to-drive and safety are important for improving the commercial value of UCEV. To improve fun-to-drive and safety, the improvement of the driving skills is important. However, the driving assistance system of an ordinary vehicle only considers the objective driving evaluation. Therefore, we propose an interactive driving assistance system that considers the relation between the subjective as well as the objective driving evaluation. Furthermore, we install a communicating robot within a UCEV to interact with human beings in real time. As a first step, we propose a driving evaluation system by applying a simplified fuzzy inference, and an interaction timing estimation method by applying a spiking neural network. Through an off-line simulation experiment, we verify the effectiveness of our proposal that is able to generate a robot utterances content as well as estimate reasonable timing.