System design for information transfer with thermal stimulation through the skin for the hearing and visually impaired people

Communication is one of fundamental need for the persistence of life. Even if one of the communication channels is impaired, people that own this disability have difficulties to join life. If the audio and visual channel which are the most active communication ways have defect the communication is nearly impossible. This situation is an obstacle for individual independence. For covering the situation and giving back the independence to this people, tactile systems are being developed. In this thesis, the system design that transfer information with cold stimuli for the people who are hearing and visually impaired was studied. Human body decrease the reaction to the continues stimulation. This situation is called adaptation that is the common property for tactile senses. The reason that selecting the cold stimuli is adaptation time is long. Also there is no study with the cold stimuli in the literature. Besides special alphabet for disabled people, a new alphabet that could encrypting to all language to binary system. Thermoelectric modules (peltiers) that have used as actuators are placed on the proximal area on the 5 fingers. Software analyzes the input text, controls the stimulis according to binary code. The maximum detectable frequency is determined as 2 Hz and it is used in experiments. Results of the experiments that perform on the 10 healthy voluntary subjects is about %80 accuracy of the detection. Frequency can be adjusted according to the person, the perception of disabled people is improved, the process of getting used to the system and the studies on the hardware that all will increase this perception accuracy.