Project Grant VC2019SAHAT002

This Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation (CFDA 47.070 - Computer and Information Science and Engineering program) to the University of Maine System provides $1,126,197 to develop a multisensory navigation assistance tool to aid individuals with visual impairments. The three-year project aims to: Identify information access requirements and optimize delivery via multisensory smartphone interfaces to support indoor navigation for blind and visually impaired individuals. Create...

This Project Grant award of $899,979 from the National Science Foundation's STEM Education program (CFDA 47.076) will fund a three-year collaboration between the Concord Consortium and Perkins School for the Blind to develop an AI-powered, multimodal data exploration environment. The goal is to enable blind and low-vision students to meaningfully engage with data through voice commands, sonification, and AI-generated audible descriptions. The project team aims to transform the educational...

Federal Grant Award Summary The National Eye Institute (NEI) awarded $878,988 through its Vision Research program (CFDA 93.867) to The Schepens Eye Research Institute, Inc. for a five-year project (May 1, 2026 – April 30, 2031) to develop comprehensive navigation assistance technology for blind and visually impaired (BVI) individuals. The project addresses the critical "last 30 feet" problem in navigation by developing three integrated modules: AllWalk (macro-navigation with sub-foot...

This $749,685 National Science Foundation project grant under the Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships program (CFDA 47.084) will fund the development of an Automated, Integrated, Multimodal Software (AIMS) system to improve inclusive access to information for persons with disabilities. Saint Louis University leads a consortium that includes software companies Vital, Unar Labs, and Viewplus Technologies to build a unified framework for authoring, converting, and delivering accessible content...

The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded a $200,000 Project Grant under the Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) to San Francisco State University (SFSU), a Hispanic-Serving Institution, to develop an AI-driven sensory augmentation system for visually impaired individuals. The goal of this 2-year research project is to improve the independence, accessibility, and well-being of visually impaired persons by leveraging natural representative sound and AI technology. The project aims to enhance...

This National Science Foundation (NSF) Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CFDA 47.070) Project Grant award of $140,758 to the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA) aims to explore the feasibility of using teleoperated robotics to assist individuals with visual impairments. The key goals of this one-year project are to: 1) conduct surveys and interviews with visually impaired individuals to understand the challenges they face in employment and explore their interest in using...

This Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) Federal Grant Program (CFDA 47.070) provides $400,000 to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to investigate methods and systems that allow blind and low-vision (BLV) users to build customized, interactive multisensory data representations spanning text, audio, and tactile modalities. The goal is to empower BLV individuals to engage in data analysis as richly...

The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded a $570,780 Project Grant under the Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) program to Lehigh University to develop an inclusive community-wide location-based services system called CityGuide. The project aims to design, deploy, and evaluate seamless and scalable indoor/outdoor location-based services that provide auxiliary wayfinding, emergency evacuation, remote assistance, and transit support for people with disabilities and the...

Federal Grant Award Summary XR Navigation Inc. received a $1,009,268 Project Grant award from the National Eye Institute (NEI) under the Vision Research program (CFDA 93.867), effective September 30, 2025, with a completion date of August 31, 2027. The awardee is developing and commercializing AUDIOM, a multimodal, large language model (LLM) chat-based digital map viewer designed to provide blind and low vision (BLI) individuals full access to thematic maps for the first time. The product will...

This Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation (CFDA 47.070 - Computer and Information Science and Engineering) provides $899,763 to Clemson University to co-design, co-develop, and test a mobile object recognition app that provides on-the-job task prompting to support people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) in the workplace. The primary objectives are to: 1) identify work tasks where object recognition could help people with IDD, 2) understand how people...