VEMI was featured in a news cast by Fox Bangor about the Inclusive Design Challenge and their application AVA- the Autonomous Vehicle Assistant. Interviews from Director Dr. Richard Corey, Chief Research Scientist Dr. Nicholas Giudice, and undergraduate student Emily Hanscom were included. Read/watch more, here: Fox Bangor News: VEMI
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The Inclusive Design Challenge, put on by the U.S. DOT, looked to create accessible solutions for autonomous vehicles from end-to-end (beginning of their trip from calling a ride to end of the trip where they are at their destination). To help with this, VEMI developed AVA, the Autonomous Vehicle Assistant, an application that identifies hazards, […]
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The VEMI lab won 3rd place in the Inclusive Design Challenge put on by the U.S. DOT. The article listed below, written by the University of Maine, discusses the project, AVA, and the different stages of the design challenge. Read more here: UMaine VEMI News VEMI Lab researchers earn federal prize, invite to White House for […]
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Dr. Giudice gives an invited keynote talk at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Conversation series on Improving Accessibility and Inclusion in Computational Science. The talk, titled “Improving inclusion in STEM fields: It’s time for information visualizations to move beyond vision” discussed problems with current techniques and advanced a bio-inspired, multisensory approach for […]
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Graduate Research Assistant Paul Fink published a new op-ed in the Bangor Daily News. The piece, “Self-driving vehicles are our future. UMaine is showing how” argues that Maine’s policymakers should capitalize on VEMI’s AV projects to make the state a leader for autonomous vehicle research and deployment. Read the article: Here.
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Members of VEMI’s Autonomous Vehicle Research Group presented at the U.S. DOT’s Inclusive Design Challenge Showcase. The team presented current work on the AVA App, a fully accessible ride-hailing, mobility, and navigation tool for fully autonomous vehicles. VEMI was joined by the nation’s top accessibility developers as they progress towards a $1 million competition held […]
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Palani, Fink, and Giudice have published a new peer-reviewed journal article related to touchscreen-based graphical access. The work compares map learning between visual and haptic displays on touchscreens with both blind and sighted users. They find that when information is matched for content, test performance is highly similar between learning mode and participant group. The […]
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On Dec 2021, Nick moderated a session on accessible indoor navigation systems at Sight Tech Global’s virtual conference. The session was entitled: Indoor Navigation: Can Inertial Navigation, Computer Vision and other new technologies Work Where GPS Can’t? The session discussed the latest indoor navigation technologies and challenges and included three internationally recognized panelists: Mike May […]
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In their talk, “The Future of FAVs for BVI People: Accessibility, Safety, and Policy Considerations,” at the Braille Institute’s Workshop on Autonomous Vehicles, Giudice and Fink described their current research related to AVs and the implications for accessibility. The interactive session included a discussion of the many benefits and huge potential of this newest form […]
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At the 8th International Conference on Spatial Cognition, Paul Fink presented Fink and Giudice’s project, Vibrotactile Maps for Promoting Spatial Understanding in Autonomous Vehicles. The talk detailed ongoing work to develop tactile maps for autonomous vehicle mapping on mobile devices.
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