Using Robots to Help Blind and Deaf People Communicate

Samantha Johnson, E’21, ME’21, bioengineering, built a robotic hand that can be used to produce tactile sign language so that people who are blind and deaf can be more independent. Johnson is still in the early stages of developing the robot, working on it as her thesis with Chiara Bellini, assistant professor of bioengineering at Northeastern, as her advisor. Right now, Johnson is focusing on the letters of the American Manual Alphabet, and training the robot to finger-spell some basic words. Read more about it here.