Mapping, assessing, and creating personalized routes of indoor spaces for people with disabilities remains a grand challenge in accessibility research. Drawing on recent work in robotics as well as emergent work in smartphone-based mapping, we introduce RAIS (Robotic Accessibility Indoor Scanner), a robotic-based indoor mapping and accessibility assessment system. As a rapid prototype, RAIS is constructed with off-the-shelf components including a vacuum robot, smartphone, and phone gimbal along with a modified version of our previous LiDAR-based accessibility scannar RASSAR. In a preliminary evaluation of three indoor spaces, we demonstrate RAIS’s ability to autonomously scan spaces, produce detailed 3D reconstructions, and find and highlight accessibility issues.

Tactile surface indicators (TSIs) provide ground-based tactile cues to help pedestrians who are blind or low-vision safely and independently navigate different environments. For example, TSIs can serve as warnings for hazards (e.g., edge of a subway platforms) and directional guides (e.g., a route through a mall). In this exploratory work, we examine how digital fabrication technologies such as 3D printing, CNC milling, vacuum forming, and heat transfer melting can enable the production of custom TSIs. To compare different fabrication approaches, we designed and evaluated a series of prototypes with varied surface materials and design features (e.g., bump height). We then solicited feedback on our ideas and fabricated TSIS via two initial qualitative evaluations: one with a blind cane user and another with an Orientation and Mobility (O&M) specialist. Our initial findings demonstrate that digital fabrication processes—primarily 3D printing and CNC milling—can produce salient and useful TSIs, and indicate interest in our approach and how highly customized, rapidly fabricable TSIs could support navigation in reconfigurable indoor spaces.

We introduce MoiréWidgets, a novel approach for tangible interaction that harnesses the Moiré effect—a prevalent optical phenomenon—to enable high-precision event detection on physical widgets. Unlike other electronics-free tangible user interfaces which require close coupling with external hardware, MoiréWidgets can be used at greater distances while maintaining high-resolution sensing of interactions. We define a set of interaction primitives, e.g., buttons, sliders, and dials, which can be used as standalone objects or combined to build complex physical controls. These consist of 3D printed structural mechanisms with patterns printed on two layers—one on paper and the other on a plastic transparency sheet—which create a visual signal that amplifies subtle movements, enabling the detection of user inputs. Our technical evaluation shows that our method outperforms standard fiducial markers and maintains sub-millimeter accuracy at 100 cm distance and wide viewing angles. We demonstrate our approach by creating an audio console and indicate how our approach could extend to other domains.

3D printing is transforming how we customize and create physical objects in engineering, accessibility, and art. However, this technology is still primarily limited to confined working areas and dedicated print beds, thereby detaching design and fabrication from real-world environments and making measuring and scaling objects tedious and labor-intensive. In this paper, we present MobiPrint, a prototype mobile fabrication system that combines elements from robotics, architecture, and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) to enable environment-scale design and fabrication in ad-hoc indoor environments. MobiPrint provides a multi-stage fabrication pipeline: first, the robotic 3D printer automatically scans and maps an indoor space; second, a custom design tool converts the map into an interactive CAD canvas for editing and placing models in the physical world; finally, the MobiPrint robot prints the object directly on the ground at the defined location. Through a “proof-by-demonstration” validation, we highlight our system’s potential across different applications, including accessibility, home furnishing, floor signage, and art. We also conduct a technical evaluation to assess MobiPrint’s localization accuracy, ground surface adhesion, payload capacity, and mapping speed. We close with a discussion of open challenges and opportunities for the future of contextualized mobile fabrication.

This paper describes the development of a system for lifelike gaze in human-robot interactions using a humanoid Audio-Animatronics®bust. Previous work examining mutual gaze between robots and humans has focused on technical implementation. We present a general architecture that seeks not only to create gaze interactions from a technological standpoint, but also through the lens of character animation where the fidelity and believability of motion is paramount; that is, we seek to create an interaction which demonstrates the illusion of life. A complete system is described that perceives persons in the environment, identifies persons-of-interest based on salient actions, selects an appropriate gaze behavior, and executes high fidelity motions to respond to the stimuli. We use mechanisms that mimic motor and attention behaviors analogous to those observed in biological systems including attention habituation, saccades, and differences in motion bandwidth for actuators. Additionally, a subsumption architecture allows layering of simple motor movements to create increasingly complex behaviors which are able to interactively and realistically react to salient stimuli in the environment through subsuming lower levels of behavior. The result of this system is an interactive human-robot experience capable of human-like gaze behaviors.